f  HE  VALLE  Y  OF 
DEMOCRACY 


Meredith  Nicholson 


Southern  Branch 
of  the 

University  of  California 

Los  Angeles 

P 


. 


Michigan  Avoiuio,  Chicago,  from  the  steps  of  the  Art   Instituti 


This  book  is  DUE  on   the  last  date  stamped  helo, 


t  1954 


OCT  1  S 

4PR  9  ~  1953 


Form  L-9-15»i-8,'24 


THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 


THE 
VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 


BY 

MEREDITH   NICHOLSON 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS    BY 

WALTER  TITTLE 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1918 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  1918,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  September,  1918 


TO  MY  CHILDREN 
ELIZABETH,  MEREDITH,  AND  LIONEL, 

IN   TOKEN   OF   MY   AFFECTION 

AND  WITH   THE   HOPE  THAT  THEY  MAY  BE  FAITHFUL  TO  THE 
HIGHEST  IDEALS  OF  AMERICAN  CITIZENSHIP 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTEB  PACS 

I.  THE  FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS  ....  1 

II.    TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS 39 

III.  THE  FARMER  or  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     ...  83 

IV.  CHICAGO 135 

V.     THE  MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS 181 

VI.    THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST           235 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Michigan  Avenue,  Chicago,  from  the  steps  of  the  Art  In- 

stitute    .................   Frontispiece 

FACING    FAQB 

"Ten  days  of  New  York,  and  it's  me  for  my  home  town"  6 

Art  exhibits  .  .  .  now  find  a  hearty  welcome  ......  20 

The  Municipal  Recreation  Pier,  Chicago  ........  66 

Types  and  Diversions   ................  74 

On  a  craft  plying  the  waters  of  Erie  I  found  all  the  condi- 
tions of  a  happy  outing  and  types  that  it  is  always  a 
joy  to  meet  ...................       78 

$v 

The  Perry  Monument  at  Put-in  Bay  ..........       80 

Q        A  typical  old  homestead  of  the  Middle  West   ......     100 

T> 

Students  of  agriculture  in  the  pageant  that  celebrated  the 
fortieth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of  Ohio  State 
University  ...................  114 

A  feeding-plant  at  "Whitehall,"  the  farm  of  Edwin  S. 

Kelly,  near  Springfield,  Ohio   ...........     120 


Judging  graded  shorthorn  herds  at  the  American  Royal 

Live  Stock  Show  in  Kansas  City    .........     132 

\> 

r- 

Chicago  is  the  big  brother  of  all  lesser  towns    ......     142 

The  "Ham  Fair"  in  Paris  is  richer  in  antiquarian  loot, 

but  Maxwell  Street  is  enough;  'twill  serve  !  .....     152 
ix 


x  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

Banquet  given  for  the  members  of  the  National  Institute 

of  Arts  and  Letters 176 

There  is  a  death-watch  that  occupies  front  seats  at  every 

political  meeting 194 

The  Political  Barbecue  198 


THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 


France  evoked  from  the  unknown  the  valley  that  may,  in  more  than 
one  sense,  be  called  the  heart  of  America.  .  .  .  The  chief  significance 
and  import  of  the  addition  of  this  valley  to  the  maps  of  the  world,  all 
indeed  that  makes  it  significant,  is  that  here  was  given  (though  not  of 
deliberate  intent)  a  rich,  wide,  untouched  field,  distant,  accessible  only 
to  the  hardiest,  without  a  shadowing  tradition  or  a  restraining  fence,  in 
which  men  of  all  races  were  to  make  attempt  to  live  together  under 
rules  of  their  own  devising  and  enforcing.  And  as  here  the  government 
of  the  people  by  the  people  was  to  have  even  more  literal  interpretation 
than  in  that  Atlantic  strip  which  had  traditions  of  property  suffrage 
and  church  privilege  and  class  distinctions,  I  have  called  it  the  "  Valley 
of  the  New  Democracy." 

— JOHN  H.  FINLBT:  "The  French  in  the  Heart  of  America." 


THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS 


"  T  I  AHE  great  trouble  with  these  fellows 
down  here,"  remarked  my  friend  as 
we  left  the  office  of  a  New  York 
banker  —  "the  trouble  with  all  of  'em  is  that 
they  forget  about  the  Folks.  You  noticed  that 
when  he  asked  in  his  large,  patronizing  way 
how  things  are  going  out  West  he  didn't  wait 
for  us  to  answer;  he  pressed  a  button  and  told 
his  secretary  to  bring  in  those  tables  of  railroad 
earnings  and  to-day's  crop  bulletins  and  that 
sort  of  rubbish,  so  he  could  tell  us.  It  never 
occurs  to  'em  that  the  Folks  are  human  beings 
and  not  just  a  column  of  statistics.  Why,  the 

Folks " 

My  friend,  an  orator  of  distinction,  formerly 
represented  a  tall-corn  district  in  Congress.  He 
drew  me  into  Trinity  churchyard  and  dis- 
coursed in  a  vein  with  which  I  had  long  been 
familiar  upon  a  certain  condescension  in  East- 


2      THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

erners,  and  the  East's  intolerable  ignorance  of 
the  ways  and  manners,  the  hopes  and  aims,  of 
the  West,  which  move  him  to  rage  and  despair. 
I  was  aware  that  he  was  gratified  to  have  an 
opportunity  to  unbosom  himself  at  the  brazen 
gates  of  Wall  Street,  and  equally  conscious  that 
he  was  experimenting  upon  me  with  phrases 
that  he  was  coining  for  use  on  the  hustings. 
They  were  so  used,  not  without  effect,  in  the 
campaign  of  1916 — a  contest  whose  results  were 
well  calculated  to  draw  attention  to  the  "Folks" 
as  an  upstanding,  independent  body  of  citizens. 
Folks  is  recognized  by  the  lexicographers  as 
an  American  colloquialism,  a  variant  of  folk. 
And  folk,  in  old  times,  was  used  to  signify  the 
commonalty,  the  plain  people.  But  my  friend, 
as  he  rolled  "Folks"  under  his  tongue  there  in 
the  shadow  of  Trinity,  used  it  in  a  sense  that 
excluded  the  hurrying  midday  Broadway  throng 
and  restricted  its  application  to  an  infinitely 
superior  breed  of  humanity,  to  be  found  on 
farms,  in  villages  and  cities  remote  from  tide- 
water. His  passion  for  democracy,  his  devotion 
to  the  commonweal,  is  not  wasted  upon  New 
Englanders  or  Middle  States  people.  In  the 
South  there  are  Folks,  yes;  his  own  people  had 
come  out  of  North  Carolina,  lingered  a  while  in 
Kentucky,  and  lodged  finally  in  Indiana,  whence, 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS     3 

following  a  common  law  of  dispersion,  they 
sought  new  homes  in  Illinois  and  Kansas.  Be- 
yond the  Rockies  there  are  Folks;  he  meets 
their  leaders  in  national  conventions;  but  they 
are  only  second  cousins  of  those  valiant  freemen 
who  rallied  to  the  call  of  Lincoln  and  followed 
Grant  and  Sherman  into  battles  that  shook  the 
continent.  My  friend's  point  of  view  is  held  by 
great  numbers  of  people  in  that  region  we  now 
call  the  Middle  West.  This  attitude  or  state  of 
mind  with  regard  to  the  East  is  not  to  be  taken 
too  seriously;  it  is  a  part  of  the  national  humor, 
and  has  been  expressed  with  delightful  vivacity 
and  candor  in  Mr.  William  Allen  White's  re- 
freshing essay,  "Emporia  and  New  York." 

A  definition  of  Folks  as  used  all  the  way  from 
Ohio  to  Colorado,  and  with  particular  point  and 
pith  by  the  haughty  sons  and  daughters  of  In- 
diana and  Kansas,  may  be  set  down  thus: 

FOLKS,  n.  A  superior  people,  derived  largely  from 
the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Celtic  races  and  domiciled  in  those 
northern  States  of  the  American  Union  whose  waters  fall 
into  the  Mississippi.  Their  folksiness  (g.  v.)  is  expressed 
in  sturdy  independence,  hostility  to  capitalistic  influence, 
and  a  proneness  to  social  and  political  experiment.  They 
are  strong  in  the  fundamental  virtues,  more  or  less  sin- 
cerely averse  to  conventionality,  and  believe  themselves 
possessed  of  a  breadth  of  vision  and  a  devotion  to  the 
common  good  at  once  beneficent  and  unique  in  the  annals 
of  mankind. 


4      THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

We  of  the  West  do  not  believe  —  not  really 
—  that  we  are  the  only  true  interpreters  of  the 
dream  of  democracy.  It  pleases  us  to  swagger 
a  little  when  we  speak  of  ourselves  as  the  Folks 
and  hint  at  the  dire  punishments  we  hold  in 
store  for  monopoly  and  privilege;  but  we  are 
far  less  dangerous  than  an  outsider,  bewildered 
or  annoyed  by  our  apparent  bitterness,  may  be 
led  to  believe.  In  our  hearts  we  do  not  think 
ourselves  the  only  good  Americans.  We  merely 
feel  that  the  East  began  patronizing  us  and  that 
anything  we  may  do  in  that  line  has  been  forced 
upon  us  by  years  of  outrageous  contumely. 
And  when  New  York  went  to  bed  on  the  night 
of  election  day,  1916,  confident  that  as  went 
the  Empire  State  so  went  the  Union,  it  was  only 
that  we  of  the  West  might  chortle  the  next 
morning  to  find  that  Ah  Sin  had  forty  packs 
concealed  in  his  sleeve  and  spread  them  out  on 
the  Sierra  Nevadas  with  an  air  that  was  child- 
like and  bland. 

Under  all  its  jauntiness  and  cocksureness, 
the  West  is  extremely  sensitive  to  criticism.  It 
likes  admiration,  and  expects  the  Eastern  visitor 
to  be  properly  impressed  by  its  achievements, 
its  prodigious  energy,  its  interpretation  and 
practical  application  of  democracy,  and  the 
earnestness  with  which  it  interests  itself  in  the 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS     5 

things  of  the  spirit.  Above  all  else  it  does  not 
like  to  appear  absurd.  According  to  its  light  it 
intends  to  do  the  right  thing,  but  it  yields  to 
laughter  much  more  quickly  than  abuse  if  the 
means  to  that  end  are  challenged. 

The  pioneers  of  the  older  States  endured  hard- 
ships quite  as  great  as  the  Middle  Westerners; 
they  have  contributed  as  generously  to  the  na- 
tional life  in  war  and  peace;  the  East's  aid  to 
the  West,  in  innumerable  ways,  is  immeasur- 
able. I  am  not  thinking  of  farm  mortgages,  but 
of  nobler  things  —  of  men  and  women  who  car- 
ried ideals  of  life  and  conduct,  of  justice  and 
law,  into  new  territory  where  such  matters  were 
often  lightly  valued.  The  prowler  in  these 
Western  States  recognizes  constantly  the  trail 
of  New  Eriglanders  who  founded  towns,  built 
schools,  colleges,  and  churches,  and  left  an  in- 
effaceable stamp  upon  communities.  Many  of 
us  Westerners  sincerely  admire  the  East  and  do 
reverence  to  Eastern  gods  when  we  can  sneak 
unobserved  into  the  temples.  We  dispose  of 
our  crops  and  merchandise  as  quickly  as  possi- 
ble, that  we  may  be  seen  of  men  in  New  York. 
Western  school-teachers  pour  into  New  England 
every  summer  on  pious  pilgrimages  to  Concord 
and  Lexington.  Arid  yet  we  feel  ourselves,  the 
great  body  of  us,  a  peculiar  people.  "Ten  days 


of  New  York,  and  it's  me  for  my  home  town'* 
in  Ohio,  Indiana,  Kansas,  or  Colorado.  This 
expresses  a  very  general  feeling  in  the  provinces. 

It  is  far  from  my  purpose  to  make  out  a  case 
for  the  West  as  the  true  home  of  the  Folks  in 
these  newer  connotations  of  that  noun,  but 
rather  to  record  some  of  the  phenomena  observ- 
able in  those  commonwealths  where  we  are 
assured  the  Folks  maintain  the  only  true  ark 
of  the  covenant  of  democracy.  Certain  con- 
cessions may  be  assumed  in  the  unconvinced 
spectator  whose  path  lies  in  less  favored  por- 
tions of  the  nation.  The  West  does  indubitably 
coax  an  enormous  treasure  out  of  its  soil  to  be 
tossed  into  the  national  hopper,  and  it  does  exert 
a  profound  influence  upon  the  national  life;  but 
its  manner  of  thought  is  different:  it  arrives  at 
conclusions  by  processes  that  strike  the  Eastern 
mind  as  illogical  and  often  as  absurd  or  danger- 
ous. The  two  great  mountain  ranges  are  bar- 
riers that  shut  it  in  a  good  deal  by  itself  in  spite 
of  every  facility  of  communication;  it  is  dis- 
posed to  be  scornful  of  the  world's  experience 
where  the  experience  is  not  a  part  of  its  own 
history.  It  believes  that  forty  years  of  Illinois 
or  Wisconsin  are  better  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay, 
and  it  is  prepared  to  prove  it. 

The    West's    philosophy    is    a    compound    of 


''Ten  days  of  Xc\v  York,  and  it's  me  for  my  home  town." 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS     7 

Franklin  and  Emerson,  with  a  dash  of  Whit- 
man. Even  Washington  is  a  pale  figure  behind 
the  Lincoln  of  its  own  prairies.  Its  curiosity  is 
insatiable;  its  mind  is  speculative;  it  has  a  su- 
preme confidence  that  upon  an  agreed  state  of 
facts  the  Folks,  sitting  as  a  high  court,  will  hand 
down  to  the  nation  a  true  and  just  decision  upon 
any  matter  in  controversy.  It  is  a  patient  lis- 
tener. Seemingly  tolerant  of  false  prophets,  it 
amiably  gives  them  hearing  in  thousands  of 
forums  while  awaiting  an  opportunity  to  smother 
their  ambitions  on  election  day.  It  will  not,  if 
it  knows  itself,  do  anything  supremely  foolish. 
Flirting  with  Greenbackism  and  Free  Silver,  it 
encourages  the  assiduous  w^ooers  shamelessly  and 
then  calmly  sends  them  about  their  business. 
Maine  can  approach  her  election  booths  as  coyly 
as  Ohio  or  Nebraska,  and  yet  the  younger  States 
rejoice  in  the  knowledge  that  after  all  nothing  is 
decided  until  they  have  been  heard  from.  Poli- 
tics becomes,  therefore,  not  merely  a  matter  for 
concern  when  some  great  contest  is  forward, 
but  the  year  round  it  crowds  business  hard  for 
first  place  in  public  affection. 


8      THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

II 

The  people  of  the  Valley  of  Democracy  (I  am 
indebted  for  this  phrase  to  Dr.  John  H.  Finley) 
do  a  great  deal  of  thinking  and  talking;  they 
brood  over  the  world's  affairs  with  a  peculiar 
intensity;  and,  beyond  question,  they  exchange 
opinions  with  a  greater  freedom  than  their  fel- 
low citizens  in  other  parts  of  America.  I  have 
travelled  between  Boston  and  New  York  on 
many  occasions  and  have  covered  most  of  New 
England  in  railway  journeys  without  ever  being 
addressed  by  a  stranger;  but  seemingly  in  the 
West  men  travel  merely  to  cultivate  the  art  of 
conversation.  The  gentleman  who  borrows  your 
newspaper  returns  it  with  a  crisp  comment  on 
the  day's  events.  He  is  from  Beatrice,  or  Fort 
Collins,  perhaps,  and  you  quickly  find  that  he 
lives  next  door  to  the  only  man  you  know  in  his 
home  town.  You  praise  Nebraska,  and  he  meets 
you  in  a  generous  spirit  of  reciprocity  and  com- 
pliments Iowa,  Minnesota,  or  any  other  com- 
monwealth you  may  honor  with  your  citizen- 
ship. 

The  West  is  proud  of  its  talkers,  and  is  at 
pains  to  produce  them  for  the  edification  of  the 
visitor.  In  Kansas  a  little  while  ago  my  host 
summoned  a  friend  of  his  from  a  town  eighty 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS     d 

miles  away  that  I  might  hear  him  talk.  And  it 
was  well  worth  my  while  to  hear  that  gentle- 
man talk;  he  is  the  best  talker  I  have  ever 
heard.  He  described  for  me  great  numbers  of 
politicians  past  and  present,  limning  them  with 
the  merciless  stroke  of  a  skilled  caricaturist,  or, 
in  a  benignant  mood,  presented  them  in  inef- 
faceable miniature.  He  knew  Kansas  as  he 
knew  his  own  front  yard.  It  was  a  delight  to 
listen  to  discourse  so  free,  so  graphic  in  its  char- 
acterizations, so  colored  and  flavored  with  the 
very  soil.  Without  impropriety  I  may  state 
that  this  gentleman  is  Mr.  Henry  J.  Allen,  of 
the  Wichita  Beacon;  the  friend  who  produced 
him  for  my  instruction  and  entertainment  is 
Mr.  William  Allen  White  of  the  Emporia 
Gazette.  Since  this  meeting  I  have  heard  Mr. 
Allen  talk  on  other  occasions  without  any  feel- 
ing that  I  should  modify  my  estimate  of  his 
conversational  powers.  In  his  most  satisfying 
narrative,  "The  Martial  Adventures  of  Henry 
and  Me,"  Mr.  White  has  told  how  he  and 
Mr.  Allen,  as  agents  of  the  Red  Cross,  bore  the 
good  news  of  the  patriotism  and  sympathy  of 
Kansas  to  England,  France,  and  Italy,  and  cer- 
tainly America  could  have  sent  no  more  heart- 
ening messengers  to  our  allies. 

I  know  of  no  Western  town  so  small  that  it 


doesn't  boast  at  least  one  wit  or  story-teller 
who  is  exhibited  as  a  special  mark  of  honor  for 
the  entertainment  of  guests.  As  often  as  not 
these  stars  are  women,  who  discuss  public  mat- 
ters with  understanding  and  brilliancy.  The 
old  superstition  that  women  are  deficient  in 
humor  never  struck  me  as  applicable  to  Ameri- 
can women  anywhere;  certainly  it  is  not  true  of 
Western  women.  In  a  region  where  story -tell- 
ing flourishes,  I  can  match  the  best  male  anec- 
dotalist  with  a  woman  who  can  evoke  mirth  by 
neater  and  defter  means. 

The  Western  State  is  not  only  a  political  but 
a  social  unit.  It  is  like  a  club,  where  every  one 
is  presumably  acquainted  with  every  one  else. 
The  railroads  and  interurbans  carry  an  enor- 
mous number  of  passengers  who  are  solely  upon 
pleasure  bent.  The  observer  is  struck  by  the 
general  sociability,  the  astonishing  amount  of 
visiting  that  is  in  progress.  In  smoking  com- 
partments and  in  day  coaches  any  one  who  is 
at  all  folksy  may  hear  talk  that  is  likely  to  prove 
informing  and  stimulating.  And  this  cheeriness 
and  volubility  of  the  people  one  meets  greatly 
enhances  the  pleasure  of  travel.  Here  one  is  re- 
minded constantly  of  the  provincial  confidence 
in  the  West's  greatness  and  wisdom  in  every 
department  of  human  endeavor. 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS  11 

In  January  of  last  year  it  was  my  privilege  to 
share  with  seven  other  passengers  the  smoking- 
room  of  a  train  out  of  Denver  for  Kansas  City. 
The  conversation  was  opened  by  a  vigorous, 
elderly  gentleman  who  had,  he  casually  re- 
marked, crossed  Kansas  six  times  in  a  wagon. 
He  was  a  native  of  Illinois,  a  graduate  of  As- 
bury  (Depauw)  College,  Indiana,  a  Civil  War 
veteran,  and  he  had  been  a  member  of  the  Mis- 
souri Legislature.  He  lived  on  a  ranch  in  Colo- 
rado, but  owned  a  farm  in  Kansas  and  was 
hastening  thither  to  test  his  acres  for  oil.  The 
range  of  his  adventures  was  amazing;  his  ac- 
quaintance embraced  men  of  all  sorts  and  con- 
ditions, including  Buffalo  Bill,  whose  funeral  he 
had  just  attended  in  Denver.  He  had  known 
General  George  A.  Custer  and  gave  us  the  true 
story  of  the  massacre  of  that  hero  and  his  com- 
mand on  the  Little  Big  Horn.  He  described 
the  "bad  men"  of  the  old  days,  many  of  whom 
had  honored  him  with  their  friendship.  At  least 
three  of  the  company  had  enjoyed  like  experi- 
ences and  verified  or  amplified  his  statements. 
This  gentleman  remarked  with  undisguised  sat- 
isfaction that  he  had  not  been  east  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi for  thirty  years ! 

I  fancied  that  he  acquired  merit  with  all  the 
trans-Mississippians  present  by  this  declaration. 


12    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

However,  a  young  commercial  traveller  who  had 
allowed  it  to  become  known  that  he  lived  in 
New  York  seemed  surprised,  if  not  pained,  by 
the  revelation.  As  we  were  passing  from  one 
dry  State  to  another  we  fell  naturally  into  a  dis- 
cussion of  prohibition  as  a  moral  and  economic 
factor.  The  drummer  testified  to  its  beneficent 
results  in  arid  territory  with  which  he  was  fa- 
miliar; one  effect  had  been  increased  orders  from 
his  Colorado  customers.  It  was  apparent  that 
his  hearers  listened  with  approval;  they  were 
citizens  of  dry  States  and  it  tickled  their  sense 
of  their  own  rectitude  that  a  pilgrim  from  the 
remote  East  should  speak  favorably  of  their 
handiwork.  But  the  young  gentleman,  warmed 
by  the  atmosphere  of  friendliness  created  by  his 
remarks,  was  guilty  of  a  grave  error  of  judg- 
ment. 

"It's  all  right  for  these  Western  towns,"  he 
said,  "but  you  could  never  put  it  over  in  New 
York.  New  York  will  never  stand  for  it.  Lon- 
don, Paris,  New  York  —  there's  only  one  New 
York!" 

The  deep  sigh  with  which  he  concluded,  ex- 
pressive of  the  most  intense  loyalty,  the  most 
poignant  homesickness,  and  perhaps  a  thirst  of 
long  accumulation,  caused  six  cigars,  firmly  set 
in  six  pairs  of  jaws,  to  point  disdainfully  at  the 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS     13 

ceiling.  No  one  spoke  until  the  offender  had 
betaken  himself  humbly  to  bed.  The  silence 
was  eloquent  of  pity  for  one  so  abandoned. 
That  any  one  privileged  to  range  the  cities  of  the 
West  should,  there  at  the  edge  of  the  great  plain, 
set  New  York  apart  for  adoration,  was  too  im- 
pious, too  monstrous,  for  verbal  condemnation. 
Young  women  seem  everywhere  to  be  in  mo- 
tion in  the  West,  going  home  from  schools,  col- 
leges, or  the  State  universities  for  week-ends,  or 
attending  social  functions  in  neighboring  towns. 
Last  fall  I  came  down  from  Green  Bay  in  a  train 
that  was  becalmed  for  several  hours  at  Manito- 
woc.  I  left  the  crowded  day  coach  to  explore 
that  pleasing  haven  and,  returning,  found  that 
my  seat  had  been  pre-empted  by  a  very  charming 
young  person  who  was  reading  my  magazine 
with  the  greatest  absorption.  We  agreed  that 
the  seat  offered  ample  space  for  two  and  that 
there  was  no  reason  in  equity  or  morals  why 
she  should  not  finish  the  story  she  had  begun. 
This  done,  she  commented  upon  it  frankly  and 
soundly  and  proceeded  to  a  brisk  discussion  of 
literature  in  general.  Her  range  of  reading  had 
been  wide  —  indeed,  I  was  embarrassed  by  its 
extent  and  impressed  by  the  shrewdness  of  her 
literary  appraisements.  She  was  bound  for  a 
normal  school  where  she  was  receiving  instruc- 


14     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

tion,  not  for  the  purpose  of  entering  into  the 
pedagogical  life  immediately,  but  to  obtain  a 
teacher's  license  against  a  time  when  it  might 
become  necessary  for  her  to  earn  a  livelihood. 
Every  girl,  she  believed,  should  fit  herself  for 
some  employment. 

Manifestly  she  was  not  a  person  to  ask  favors 
of  destiny:  at  eighteen  she  had  already  made 
terms  with  life  and  tossed  the  contract  upon  the 
knees  of  the  gods.  The  normal  school  did  not 
require  her  presence  until  the  day  after  to-mor- 
row, and  she  was  leaving  the  train  at  the  end  of 
an  hour  to  visit  a  friend  who  had  arranged  a 
dance  in  her  honor.  If  that  species  of  enter- 
tainment interested  me,  she  said,  I  might  stop 
for  the  dance.  Engagements  farther  down  the 
line  precluded  the  possibility  of  my  accepting 
this  invitation,  which  was  extended  with  the  ut- 
most circumspection,  as  though  she  were  offer- 
ing an  impersonal  hospitality  supported  by  the 
sovereign  dignity  of  the  commonwealth  of  Wis- 
consin. When  the  train  slowed  down  at  her 
station  a  commotion  on  the  platform  announced 
the  presence  of  a  reception  committee  of  con- 
siderable magnitude,  from  which  I  inferred  that 
her  advent  was  an  incident  of  importance  to  the 
community.  As  she  bade  me  good-by  she  tore 
apart  a  bouquet  of  fall  flowers  she  had  been 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS     15 

carrying,  handed  me  half  of  them,  and  passed 
from  my  sight  forever.  My  exalted  opinion  of 
the  young  women  of  Wisconsin  was  strength- 
ened on  another  occasion  by  a  chance  meeting 
with  two  graduates  of  the  State  University  who 
were  my  fellow  voyagers  on  a  steamer  that 
bumped  into  a  riotous  hurricane  on  its  way 
down  Lake  Michigan.  On  the  slanting  deck 
they  discoursed  of  political  economy  with  a  zest 
and  humor  that  greatly  enlivened  my  respect 
for  the  dismal  science. 

The  listener  in  the  West  accumulates  data 
touching  the  tastes  and  ambitions  of  the  people 
of  which  local  guide-books  offer  no  hint.  A  lit- 
tle while  ago  two  ladies  behind  me  in  a  Minne- 
apolis street-car  discussed  Cardinal  Newman's 
"Dream  of  Gerontius,"  with  as  much  avidity  as 
though  it  were  the  newest  novel.  Having  found 
that  the  apostles  of  free  verse  had  captured  and 
fortified  Denver  and  Omaha,  it  was  a  relief  to 
encounter  these  Victorian  pickets  on  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Mississippi. 

Ill 

One  is  struck  by  the  remarkable  individuality 
of  the  States,  towns,  and  cities  of  the  West. 
State  boundaries  are  not  merely  a  geographical 


16    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

expression :  they  mark  real  differences  of  opinion, 
habit,  custom,  and  taste.  This  is  not  a  senti- 
mental idea;  any  one  may  prove  it  for  himself 
by  crossing  from  Illinois  into  Wisconsin,  or  from 
Iowa  into  Nebraska.  Kansas  and  Nebraska, 
though  cut  out  of  the  same  piece,  not  only  seem 
different  but  they  are  different.  Interest  in 
local  differentiations,  in  shadings  of  the  ''color" 
derived  from  a  common  soil,  keep  the  visitor 
alert.  To  be  sure  the  Ladies  of  the  Lakes  — 
Chicago,  Cleveland,  Detroit,  Milwaukee,  To- 
ledo, Duluth  —  have  physical  aspects  in  com- 
mon, but  the  similarity  ends  there.  The  litera- 
ture of  chambers  of  commerce  as  to  the  num- 
ber of  freight-cars  handled  or  increases  of  popu- 
lation are  of  no  assistance  in  a  search  for  the 
causes  of  diversities  in  aim,  spirit,  and  achieve- 
ment. 

The  alert  young  cities  watch  each  other 
enviously  -  -  they  are  enormously  proud  and 
anxious  not  to  be  outbettered  in  the  struggle  for 
perfection.  In  many  places  one  is  conscious  of 
an  effective  leadership,  of  a  man  or  a  group  of 
men  and  women  who  plant  a  target  and  rally 
the  citizenry  to  play  for  the  bull's-eye.  A  con- 
spicuous instance  of  successful  individual  leader- 
ship is  offered  by  Kansas  City,  where  Mr.  Wil- 
liam R.  Nelson,  backed  by  his  admirable  news- 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS    17 

paper,  The  Star,  fought  to  the  end  of  his  life  to 
make  his  city  a  better  place  to  live  in.  Mr. 
Nelson  was  a  remarkably  independent  and  cou- 
rageous spirit,  his  journalistic  ideals  were  the 
highest,  and  he  was  deeply  concerned  for  the 
public  welfare,  not  only  in  the  more  obvious 
sense,  but  equally  in  bringing  within  the  com- 
mon reach  enlightening  influences  that  are  likely 
to  be  neglected  in  new  communities.  Kansas 
City  not  only  profited  by  Mr.  Nelson's  wisdom 
and  generosity  in  his  lifetime,  but  the  commu- 
nity will  receive  ultimately  his  entire  fortune.  I 
am  precluded  from  citing  in  other  cities  men 
still  living  who  are  distinguished  by  a  like  devo- 
tion to  public  service,  but  I  have  chosen  Mr. 
Nelson  as  an  eminent  example  of  the  force  that 
may  be  wielded  by  a  single  citizen. 

Minneapolis  offers  a  happy  refutation  of  a 
well-established  notion  that  a  second  generation 
is  prone  to  show  a  weakened  fibre.  The  sons 
of  the  men  who  fashioned  this  vigorous  city 
have  intelligently  and  generously  supported 
many  undertakings  of  highest  value.  The  Min- 
neapolis art  museum  and  school  and  an  orches- 
tra of  widening  reputation  present  eloquent  tes- 
timony to  the  city's  attitude  toward  those  things 
that  are  more  excellent.  Contrary  to  the  usual 
history,  these  were  not  won  as  the  result  of  la- 


18    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

borious  effort  but  rose  spontaneously.  The  pub- 
lic library  of  this  city  not  only  serves  the  hurried 
business  man  through  a  branch  in  the  business 
district,  equipped  with  industrial  and  commer- 
cial reference  books,  but  keeps  pace  with  the 
local  development  in  art  and  music  by  assem- 
bling the  best  literature  in  these  departments. 
Both  Minneapolis  and  Kansas  City  are  well  ad- 
vertised by  their  admirably  managed,  progres- 
sive libraries.  More  may  be  learned  from  a 
librarian  as  to  the  trend  of  thought  in  his  com- 
munity than  from  the  secretary  of  a  commercial 
body.  It  is  significant  that  last  year,  when  mu- 
nicipal affairs  were  much  to  the  fore  in  Kansas 
City,  there  was  a  marked  increase  in  the  use  of 
books  on  civic  and  kindred  questions.  The  lat- 
est report  of  the  librarian  recites  that  "as  the 
library  more  nearly  meets  the  wants  of  the  com- 
munity, the  proportion  of  fiction  used  grows 
less,  being  but  34  per  cent  of  the  whole  issue  for 
the  year."  Similar  impulses  and  achievements 
are  manifested  in  Cleveland,  a  city  that  has 
written  many  instructive  chapters  in  the  history 
of  municipal  government.  Since  her  exposition 
of  1904  and  the  splendid  pageant  of  1914  crys- 
tallized public  aspiration,  St.  Louis  has  experi- 
enced a  new  birth  of  civic  pride.  Throughout 
the  West  American  art  has  found  cordial  sup- 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS    19 

port.  In  Cleveland,  Toledo,  Detroit,  Cincin- 
nati, Indianapolis,  St.  Louis,  Chicago,  Minneap- 
olis, Omaha,  and  Kansas  City  there  are  note- 
worthy specimens  of  the  best  work  of  American 
painters.  The  art  schools  connected  with  the 
Western  museums  have  exercised  a  salutary  in- 
fluence in  encouraging  local  talent,  not  only  in 
landscape  and  portraiture,  but  in  industrial  de- 
signing. 

By  friendly  co-operation  on  the  part  of 
Chicago  and  St.  Louis  smaller  cities  are  able 
to  enjoy  advantages  that  would  otherwise  be 
beyond  their  reach.  Lectures,  orchestras,  and 
travelling  art  exhibits  that  formerly  stopped  at 
Chicago  or  jumped  thence  to  California,  now 
find  a  hearty  welcome  in  Kansas  City,  Omaha, 
and  Denver.  Thus  Indianapolis  was  among  the 
few  cities  that  shared  a  few  years  ago  in  the 
comprehensive  presentation  of  Saint-Gaudens's 
work.  The  expense  of  the  undertaking  was  not 
inconsiderable,  but  merchants  and  manufactur- 
ers bought  tickets  for  distribution  among  their 
employees  and  met  the  demand  with  a  generos- 
ity that  left  a  balance  in  the  art  association's 
treasury.  These  Western  cities,  with  their  po- 
litical and  social  problems,  their  rough  edges, 
smoke,  and  impudent  intrusions  of  tracks  and 
chimneys  due  to  rapid  development  and  phe- 


20    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

nomenal  prosperity,  present  art  literally  as  the 
handmaiden  of  industry  — 

"All-lovely  Art,  stern  Labor's  fair-haired  child." 

If  any  one  thing  is  quite  definitely  settled 
throughout  this  territory  it  is  that  yesterday's 
leaves  have  been  plucked  from  the  calendar: 
this  verily  is  the  land  of  to-morrow.  One  does 
not  stand  beside  the  Missouri  at  Omaha  and 
indulge  long  in  meditations  upon  the  turbulent 
history  and  waywardness  of  that  tawny  stream; 
the  cattle  receipts  for  the  day  may  have  broken 
all  records,  but  there  are  schools  that  must  be 
seen,  a  collection  of  pictures  to  visit,  or  lectures 
to  attend.  I  unhesitatingly  pronounce  Omaha 
the  lecture  centre  of  ^the  world  —  reception 
committees  flutter  at  the  arrival  of  all  trains. 
Man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone  —  not 
even  in  the  heart  of  the  corn  belt  in  a  city  that 
haughtily  proclaims  itself  the  largest  primary 
butter-market  in  the  world !  It  is  the  great 
concern  of  Kansas  that  it  shall  miss  nothing; 
to  cross  that  commonwealth  is  to  gain  the  im- 
pression that  politics  and  corn  are  hard  pressed 
as  its  main  industries  by  the  cultural  mecha- 
nisms that  produce  sweetness  and  light.  Iowa 
goes  to  bed  early  but  not  before  it  has  read  an 
improving  book ! 


Art  exhibits  .  .  .  now  find  a  hearty  welcome. 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS    21 

In  those  Western  States  where  women  have 
assumed  the  burden  of  citizenship  they  seem 
to  lose  none  of  their  zeal  for  art,  literature,  and 
music.  Equal  suffrage  was  established  in  Colo- 
rado in  1893,  and  the  passing  pilgrim  cannot  fail 
to  be  struck  by  the  lack  of  self -consciousness  with 
which  the  women  of  that  State  discuss  social 
and  political  questions.  The  Western  woman  is 
animated  by  a  divine  energy  and  she  is  dis- 
tinguished by  her  willingness  to  render  public 
service.  What  man  neglects  or  ignores  she 
cheerfully  undertakes,  and  she  has  so  culti- 
vated the  gentle  art  of  persuasion  that  the  mas- 
culine check-book  opens  readily  to  her  demand 
for  assistance  in  her  pet  causes. 

It  must  not  be  assumed  that  in  this  land  of 
pancakes  and  panaceas  interest  in  "culture" 
is  new  or  that  its  manifestations  are  sporadic 
or  ill-directed.  The  early  comers  brought  with 
them  sufficient  cultivation  to  leaven  the  lump, 
and  the  educational  forces  and  cultural  move- 
ments now  everywhere  marked  in  Western 
communities  are  but  the  fruition  of  the  labors 
of  the  pioneers  who  bore  books  of  worth  and 
a  love  of  learning  with  them  into  the  wilderness. 
Much  sound  reading  was  done  in  log  cabins 
when  the  school-teacher  was  still  a  rarity,  and 
amid  the  strenuous  labors  of  the  earliest  days 


22    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

many  sought  self-expression  in  various  kinds 
of  writing.  Along  the  Ohio  there  were  bards 
in  abundance,  and  a  decade  before  the  Civil 
War  Cincinnati  had  honest  claims  to  being  a 
literary  centre.  The  numerous  poets  of  those 
days  —  Coggeshall's  "Poets  and  Poetry  of  the 
West,"  published  in  1866,  mentions  one  hundred 
and  fifty-two  !  —  were  chiefly  distinguished  by 
their  indifference  to  the  life  that  lay  nearest 
them.  Sentiment  and  sentimentalism  flourished 
at  a  time  when  life  was  a  hard  business,  though 
Edward  Eggleston  is  entitled  to  consideration 
as  an  early  realist,  by  reason  of  "The  Hoosier 
Schoolmaster,"  which,  in  spite  of  Indiana's 
repudiation  of  it  as  false  and  defamatory,  really 
contains  a  true  picture  of  conditions  with  which 
Eggleston  was  thoroughly  familiar.  There  fol- 
lowed later  E.  W.  Howe's  "The  Story  of  a 
Country  Town"  and  Hamlin  Garland's  "Main 
Travelled  Roads,"  which  are  landmarks  of 
realism  firmly  planted  in  territory  invaded  later 
by  Romance,  bearing  the  blithe  flag  of  Zenda. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  Mississippi  valley 
should  prove  far  more  responsive  to  the  chimes 
of  romance  than  to  the  harsh  clang  of  realism. 
The  West  in  itself  is  a  romance.  Virginia's 
claims  to  recognition  as  the  chief  field  of  tourney 
for  romance  in  America  totter  before  the  his- 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS    23 

tory  of  a  vast  area  whose  soberest  chronicles 
are  enlivened  by  the  most  inthralling  adven- 
tures and  a  long  succession  of  picturesque  char- 
acters. The  French  voyageur,  on  his  way  from 
Canada  by  lake  and  river  to  clasp  hands  with 
his  kinsmen  of  the  lower  Mississippi;  the  Amer- 
ican pioneers,  with  their  own  heroes  —  George 
Rogers  Clark,  "Mad  Anthony"  Wayne,  and 
"Tippecanoe"  Harrison;  the  soldiers  of  Indian 
wars  and  their  sons  who  fought  in  Mexico  in 
the  forties;  the  men  who  donned  the  blue  in  the 
sixties;  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  who 
kept  the  war  governors  anxious  in  the  border 
States  —  these  are  all  disclosed  upon  a  tapestry 
crowded  with  romantic  strife  and  stress. 

The  earliest  pioneers,  enjoying  little  inter- 
course with  their  fellows,  had  time  to  fashion 
many  a  tale  of  personal  adventure  against  the 
coming  of  a  visitor,  or  for  recital  on  court  days, 
at  political  meetings,  or  at  the  prolonged  "camp 
meetings,"  where  questions  of  religion  were 
debated.  They  cultivated  unconsciously  the 
art  of  telling  their  stories  well.  The  habit  of 
story-telling  grew  into  a  social  accomplishment 
and  it  was  by  a  natural  transition  that  here 
and  there  some  one  began  to  set  down  his  tales 
on  paper.  Thus  General  Lew  Wallace,  who 
lived  in  the  day  of  great  story-tellers,  wrote 


24    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

;<The  Fair  God,"  a  romance  of  the  coming  of 
Cortez  to  Mexico,  and  followed  it  with  "Ben 
Hur,"  one  of  the  most  popular  romances  ever 
written.  Crawfordsville,  the  Hoosier  county- 
seat  where  General  Wallace  lived,  was  once 
visited  and  its  romanticism  menaced  by  Mr. 
Howells,  who  sought  local  color  for  the  court 
scene  in  "A  Modern  Instance,"  his  novel  of 
divorce.  Indiana  was  then  a  place  where  legal 
separations  were  obtainable  by  convenient 'proc- 
esses relinquished  later  to  Nevada. 

Maurice  Thompson  and  his  brother  Will, 
who  wrote  "The  High  Tide  at  Gettysburg," 
sent  out  from  Crawfordsville  the  poems  and 
sketches  that  made  archery  a  popular  amuse- 
ment in  the  seventies.  The  Thompsons,  both 
practising  lawyers,  employed  their  leisure  in 
writing  and  in  hunting  with  the  bow  and  arrow. 
"The  Witchery  of  Archery"  and  "Songs  of 
Fair  Weather"  still  retain  their  pristine  charm. 
That  two  young  men  in  an  Indiana  country 
town  should  deliberately  elect  to  live  in  the 
days  of  the  Plantagenets  speaks  for  the  ro- 
mantic atmosphere  of  the  Hoosier  common- 
wealth. A  few  miles  away  James  Whitcomb 
Riley  had  already  begun  to  experiment  with  a 
lyre  of  a  different  sort,  and  quickly  won  for 
himself  a  place  in  popular  affection  shared  only 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS    25 

among  American  poets  by  Longfellow.  Almost 
coincident  with  his  passing  rose  Edgar  Lee 
Masters,  writh  the  "Spoon  River  Anthology," 
and  Vachel  Lindsay,  a  poet  hardly  less  distin- 
guished for  penetration  and  sincerity,  to  chant 
of  Illinois  in  the  key  of  realism.  John  G.  Nie- 
hardt  has  answered  their  signals  from  Nebraska's 
corn  lands.  Nor  shall  I  omit  from  the  briefest 
list  the  "Chicago  Poems"  of  Carl  Sandburg. 
The  "wind  stacker"  and  the  tractor  are  dan- 
gerous engines  for  Romance  to  charge:  I  should 
want  Mr.  Booth  Tarkington  to  umpire  so  mo- 
mentous a  contest.  Mr.  Tarkington  flirts 
shamelessly  with  realism  and  has  shown  in 
"The  Turmoil"  that  he  can  slip  overalls  and 
jumper  over  the  sword  and  ruffles  of  Beaucaire 
and  make  himself  a  knight  of  industry.  Like- 
wise, in  Chicago,  Mr.  Henry  B.  Fuller  has  posted 
the  Chevalier  Pensieri-Vani  on  the  steps  of  the 
board  of  trade,  merely,  we  may  assume,  to 
collect  material  for  realistic  fiction.  The  West 
has  proved  that  it  is  not  afraid  of  its  own  shadow 
in  the  adumbrations  of  Mrs.  Mary  A.  Watts, 
Mr.  Robert  Herrick,  Miss  Willa  Sibert  Gather, 
Mr.  William  Allen  White,  and  Mr.  Brand  Whit- 
lock,  all  novelists  of  insight,  force,  and  author- 
ity; nor  may  we  forget  that  impressive  tale  of 
Chicago,  Frank  Norris's  "The  Pit,"  a  work 


26     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

that  gains  in  dignity  and  significance  with  the 
years. 

Education  in  all  the  Western  States  has  not 
merely  performed  its  traditional  functions,  but 
has  become  a  distinct  social  and  economic  force. 
It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  day  of  the  three  R's  and 
the  dictum  that  the  State's  duty  to  the  young 
ends  when  it  has  eliminated  them  from  the 
illiteracy  columns  of  the  census  to  the  State 
universities  and  agricultural  colleges,  with  their 
broad  curricula  and  extension  courses,  and  the 
free  kindergartens,  the  manual-training  high 
schools,  and  vocational  institutions  that  are  so- 
cializing and  democratizing  education. 

IV 

In  every  town  of  the  great  Valley  there  are 
groups  of  people  earnestly  engaged  in  deter- 
mined efforts  to  solve  governmental  problems. 
These  efforts  frequently  broaden  into  "move- 
ments" that  succeed.  We  witness  here  con- 
stant battles  for  reform  that  are  often  won  only 
to  be  lost  again.  The  bosses,  driven  out  at 
one  point,  immediately  rally  and  fortify  an- 
other. Nothing,  however,  is  pleasanter  to 
record  than  the  fact  that  the  war  upon  vicious 
or  stupid  local  government  goes  steadily  on 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS    27 

and  that  throughout  the  field  under  scrutiny 
there  have  been  within  a  decade  marked  and 
encouraging  gains.  The  many  experiments 
making  with  administrative  devices  are  rapidly 
developing  a  mass  of  valuable  data.  The  very 
lack  of  uniformity  in  these  movements  adds  to 
their  interest;  in  countless  communities  the 
attention  is  arrested  by  something  well  done 
that  invites  emulation.  Constant  scandals  in 
municipal  administration,  due  to  incompetence, 
waste,  and  graft,  are  slowly  penetrating  to  the 
consciousness  of  the  apathetic  citizen,  and  sen- 
timent favorable  to  the  abandonment  of  the 
old  system  of  partisan  local  government  has 
grown  with  remarkable  rapidity.  The  absolute 
divorcement  of  municipalities  from  State  and 
national  politics  is  essential  to  the  conduct  of 
city  government  on  business  principles.  This 
statement  is  made  with  the  more  confidence 
from  the  fact  that  it  is  reinforced  by  a  creditable 
literature  on  the  subject,  illustrated  by  count- 
less surveys  of  boss-ridden  cities  wThere  there  is 
determined  protest  against  government  by  the 
unfit.  That  cities  shall  be  conducted  as  stock 
companies  with  reference  solely  to  the  rights 
and  needs  of  the  citizen,  without  regard  to 
party  politics,  is  the  demand  in  so  many  quar- 
ters that  the  next  decade  is  bound  to  witness 


striking  transformations  in  this  field.  Last 
March  Kansas  City  lost  a  splendidly  conducted 
fight  for  a  new  charter  that  embraced  the  city- 
manager  plan.  Here,  however,  was  a  defeat 
with  honor,  for  the  results  proved  so  conclusively 
the  contention  of  the  reformers,  that  the  bosses 
rule,  that  the  effort  was  not  wasted.  In  Chicago, 
Cleveland,  Cincinnati,  and  Minneapolis,  the 
leaven  is  at  work,  and  the  bosses  with  grati- 
fying density  are  aiding  the  cause  by  their  hos- 
tility and  their  constant  illustration  of  the  evils 
of  the  antiquated  system  they  foster. 

The  elimination  of  the  saloon  in  States  that 
have  already  adopted  prohibition  promises  polit- 
ical changes  of  the  utmost  importance  in  mu- 
nicipal affairs.  The  saloon  is  the  most  familiar 
and  the  most  mischievous  of  all  the  outposts 
and  rallying  centres  of  political  venality.  Here 
the  political  "organization"  maintains  its  faith- 
ful sentinels  throughout  the  year;  the  good 
citizen,  intent  upon  his  lawful  business  and 
interested  in  politics  only  when  election  day 
approaches,  is  usually  unaware  that  hundreds  of 
barroom  loafers  are  constantly  plotting  against 
him.  The  mounting  ''dry  wave"  is  attributable 
quite  as  much  to  revolt  against  the  saloon  as 
the  most  formidable  of  political  units  as  to  a 
moral  detestation  of  alcohol.  Economic  con- 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS    29 

siderations  also  have  entered  very  deeply  into 
the  movement,  and  prohibition  advocated  as  a 
war  measure  developed  still  another  phase. 
The  liquor  interests  provoked  and  invited  the 
drastic  legislation  that  has  overwhelmed  their 
traffic  and  made  dry  territory  of  a  large  area 
of  the  West.  By  defying  regulatory  laws  and 
maintaining  lobbies  in  legislatures,  by  cracking 
the  whip  over  candidates  and  office-holders, 
they  made  of  themselves  an  intolerable  nui- 
sance. Indiana's  adoption  of  prohibition  was 
very  largely  due  to  antagonism  aroused  by  the 
liquor  interests  through  their  political  activities 
covering  half  a  century.  The  frantic  efforts  of 
breweries  and  distilleries  there  and  in  many 
other  States  to  persuade  saloon-keepers  to  obey 
the  laws  in  the  hope  of  spiking  the  guns  of  the 
opposition  came  too  late.  The  liquor  interests 
had  counselled  and  encouraged  lawlessness  too 
long  and  found  the  retailer  spoiled  by  the  im- 
munity their  old  political  power  had  gained  for 
him. 

A  sweeping  Federal  law  abolishing  the  traffic 
may  be  enacted  while  these  pages  are  on  the 
press.  Without  such  a  measure  wet  and  dry 
forces  will  continue  to  battle;  territory  that  is 
only  partly  dry  will  continue  its  struggle  for 
bone-dry  laws,  and  States  that  roped  and  tied 


John  Barleycorn  must  resist  attempts  to  put 
him  on  his  feet  again.  There  is,  however, 
nothing  to  encourage  the  idea  that  the  strongly 
developed  sentiment  against  the  saloon  will  lose 
its  potency;  and  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that 
any  political  party  in  a  dry  State  will  write  a 
wet  plank  into  its  platform,  though  stranger 
things  have  happened.  Men  who,  in  Colorado 
for  example,  were  bitterly  hostile  to  prohibition 
confess  that  the  results  convince  them  of  its 
efficacy.  The  Indiana  law  became  effective  last 
April,  and  in  June  the  workhouse  at  Indianapolis 
was  closed  permanently,  for  the  interesting  rea- 
son that  the  number  of  police-court  prisoners 
was  so  reduced  as  to  make  the  institution  un- 
necessary. 

The  economic  shock  caused  by  the  prostra- 
tion of  this  long-established  business  is  absorbed 
much  more  readily  than  might  be  imagined. 
Compared  with  other  forms  of  manufacturing, 
brewing  and  distilling  have  been  enormously 
profitable,  and  the  operators  have  usually  taken 
care  of  themselves  in  advance  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  their  business.  I  passed  a  brewery  near 
Denver  that  had  turned  its  attention  to  the 
making  of  "near"  beer  and  malted  milk,  and 
employed  a  part  of  its  labor  otherwise  in  the 
manufacture  of  pottery.  The  presence  of  a 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS    31 

herd  of  cows  on  the  brewery  property  to  supply 
milk,  for  combination  with  malt,  marked,  with 
what  struck  me  as  the  pleasantest  of  ironies,  a 
cheerful  acquiescence  in  the  new  order.  Den- 
ver property  rented  formerly  to  saloon-keepers 
I  found  pretty  generally  occupied  by  shops  of 
other  kinds.  In  one  window  was  this  alluring 
sign: 

BUY  YOUR  SHOES 
WHERE  You  BOUGHT  YOUR  BOOZE 


The  West's  general  interest  in  public  affairs  is 
not  remarkable  when  we  consider  the  history  of 
the  Valley.  The  pioneers  who  crossed  the  Alle- 
ghanies  with  rifle  and  axe  were  peculiarly  jealous 
of  their  rights  and  liberties.  They  viewed  every 
political  measure  in  the  light  of  its  direct,  con- 
crete bearing  upon  themselves.  They  risked 
much  to  build  homes  and  erect  States  in  the 
wilderness  and  they  insisted,  not  unreasonably, 
that  the  government  should  not  forget  them  in 
their  exile.  Poverty  enforced  a  strict  watch 
upon  public  expenditures,  and  their  personal 
security  entered  largely  into  their  attitude  to- 
ward the  nation.  Their  own  imperative  needs, 
the  thinly  distributed  population,  apprehensions 


32    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

created  by  the  menace  of  Indians,  stubbornly 
hostile  to  the  white  man's  encroachments  —  all 
contributed  to  a  certain  selfishness  in  the  set- 
tlers' point  of  view,  and  they  welcomed  political 
leaders  who  advocated  measures  that  promised 
relief  and  protection.  As  they  listened  to  the 
pleas  of  candidates  from  the  stump  (a  rostrum 
fashioned  by  their  own  axes !)  they  were  in- 
tensely critical.  Moreover,  the  candidate  him- 
self was  subjected  to  searching  scrutiny.  Gov- 
ernment, to  these  men  of  faith  and  hardihood, 
was  a  very  personal  thing:  the  leaders  they 
chose  to  represent  them  were  in  the  strictest 
sense  their  representatives  and  agents,  whom 
they  retired  on  very  slight  provocation. 

The  sharp  projection  of  the  extension  of 
slavery  as  an  issue  served  to  awaken  and  crys- 
tallize national  feeling.  Education,  internal 
improvements  to  the  accompaniment  of  wild- 
cat finance,  reforms  in  State  and  county  govern- 
ments, all  yielded  before  the  greater  issue.  The 
promise  of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness had  led  the  venturous  husbandmen  into 
woods  and  prairies,  and  they  viewed  with  ab- 
horrence the  idea  that  one  man  might  own  an- 
other and  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  labor.  Lincoln 
was  not  more  the  protagonist  of  a  great  cause 
than  the  personal  spokesman  of  a  body  of  free- 


FOLKS  AND  THEIR  FOLKSINESS    33 

men  who  were  attracted  to  his  standard  by  the 
facts  of  his  history  that  so  largely  paralleled 
their  own. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Lincoln  and 
the  struggle  of  which  he  was  the  leader  roused 
the  Middle  West  to  its  first  experience  of  a 
national  consciousness.  The  provincial  spirit 
vanished  in  an  hour  before  the  beat  of  drums 
under  the  elms  and  maples  of  court-house  yards. 
The  successful  termination  of  the  war  left  the 
West  the  possessor  of  a  new  influence  in  national 
affairs.  It  had  not  only  thrown  into  the  con- 
flict its  full  share  of  armed  strength  but  had 
sent  Grant,  Sherman,  and  many  military  stars 
of  lesser  magnitude  flashing  into  the  firmament. 
The  West  was  thenceforth  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  all  political  speculations.  Lincoln  was  the 
precursor  of  a  line  of  Presidents  all  of  whom 
were  soldiers:  Grant,  Hayes,  Garfield,  Harrison, 
McKinley ;  and  there  was  no  marked  disturbance 
in  the  old  order  until  Mr.  Cleveland's  advent  in 
1884,  with  a  resulting  flare  of  independence  not 
wholly  revealed  in  the  elections  following  his 
three  campaigns. 

My  concern  here  is  not  with  partisan  matters, 
nor  even  with  those  internal  upheavals  that  in 
the  past  have  caused  so  much  heartache  to  the 
shepherds  of  both  of  the  major  political  flocks. 


34    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

With  only  the  greatest  delicacy  may  one  refer 
to  the  Democratic  schism  of  1896  or  to  the 
break  in  the  Republican  ranks  of  1912.  But 
the  purposes  and  aims  of  the  Folks  with  respect 
to  government  are  of  national  importance. 
The  Folks  are  not  at  all  disposed  to  relinquish 
the  power  in  national  affairs  which  they  have 
wielded  with  growing  effectiveness.  No  matter 
whether  they  are  right  or  wrong  in  their  judg- 
ments, they  are  far  from  being  a  negligible  force, 
and  forecasters  of  nominees  and  policies  for 
the  future  do  well  to  give  heed  to  them. 

The  trend  toward  social  democracy,  with 
its  accompanying  eagerness  to  experiment  with 
new  devices  for  confiding  to  the  people  the  power 
of  initiating  legislation  and  expelling  unsatis- 
factory officials,  paralleled  by  another  tendency 
toward  the  short  ballot  and  the  concentration 
of  power  —  these  and  kindred  tendencies  are 
viewed  best  in  a  non-partisan  spirit  in  those 
free  Western  airs  where  the  electorate  is  fickle, 
coy,  and  hard  to  please.  A  good  deal  of  what 
was  called  populism  twenty  years  ago,  and  as- 
sociated in  the  minds  of  the  contumelious  with 
long  hair  and  whiskers,  was  advocated  in  1912 
by  gentlemen  who  called  themselves  Progres- 
sives and  were  on  good  terms  with  the  barber. 
In  the  Progressive  convention  of  1916  I  was 


struck  by  the  great  number  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
keys  worn  by  delegates  and  sympathetic  spec- 
tators. If  they  were  cranks  they  were  educated 
cranks,  who  could  not  be  accused  of  ignorance 
of  the  teachings  of  experience  in  their  political 
cogitations.  They  were  presumably  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  republics  from  the  begin- 
ning of  time,  and  the  philosophy  to  be  deduced 
from  their  disasters.  It  was  because  the  Pro- 
gressive party  enlisted  so  many  very  capable 
politicians  familiar  with  organization  methods 
that  it  became  a  formidable  rival  of  the  old 
parties  in  1912.  In  1916  it  lost  most  of  these 
supporters,  who  saw  hope  of  Republican  suc- 
cess and  were  anxious  to  ride  on  the  band-wagon. 
Nothing,  however,  could  be  more  reassuring 
than  the  confidence  in  the  people,  i.  e.,  the  Folks 
manifested  by  men  and  women  who  know  their 
Plato  and  are  familiar  with  Isaiah's  distrust  of 
the  crowd  and  his  reliance  upon  the  remnant. 

The  isolation  of  the  independent  who  be- 
longs to  no  organization  and  is  unaware  of  the 
number  of  voters  who  share  his  sentiments, 
militates  against  his  effectiveness  as  a  protest- 
ing factor.  He  waits  timidly  in  the  dark  for 
a  flash  that  will  guide  him  toward  some  more 
courageous  brother.  The  American  is  the  most 
self-conscious  being  on  earth  and  he  is  loath 


36   THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

to  set  himself  apart  to  be  pointed  out  as  a  crank, 
for  in  partisan  camps  all  recalcitrants  are  viewed 
contemptuously  as  erratic  and  dangerous  per- 
sons. It  has  been  demonstrated  that  a  com- 
paratively small  number  of  voters  in  half  a 
dozen  Western  States,  acting  together,  can 
throw  a  weight  into  the  scale  that  will  defeat 
one  or  the  other  of  the  chief  candidates  for  the 
presidency.  If  they  should  content  themselves 
with  an  organization  and,  without  nominating 
candidates,  menace  either-  side  that  aroused 
their  hostility,  their  effectiveness  would  be  in- 
creased. But  here  again  we  encounter  that 
peculiarity  of  the  American  that  he  likes  a  crowd. 
He  is  so  used  to  the  spectacular  demonstrations 
of  great  campaigns,  and  so  enjoys  the  thunder 
of  the  captains  and  the  shouting,  that  he  is 
overcome  by  loneliness  when  he  finds  himself 
at  small  conferences  that  plot  the  overthrow 
of  the  party  of  his  former  allegiance. 

The  West  may  be  likened  to  a  naughty  boy 
in  a  hickory  shirt  and  overalls  who  enjoys  pulling 
the  chair  from  under  his  knickerbockered,  Eton- 
collared  Eastern  cousins.  The  West  creates  a 
new  issue  whenever  it  pleases,  and  wearying  of 
one  plaything  cheerfully  seeks  another.  It 
accepts  the  defeat  of  free  silver  and  turns  joy- 
fully to  prohibition,  flattering  itself  that  its  chief 


concern  is  with  moral  issues.  It  wants  to  make 
the  world  a  better  place  to  live  in  and  it  be- 
lieves in  abundant  legislation  to  that  end.  It 
experiments  by  States,  points  with  pride  to 
the  results,  and  seeks  to  confer  the  priceless 
boon  upon  the  nation.  Much  of  its  lawmaking 
is  shocking  to  Eastern  conservatism,  but  no 
inconsiderable  number  of  Easterners  hear  the 
window-smashing  and  are  eager  to  try  it  at 
home. 

To  spank  the  West  and  send  it  supperless 
to  bed  is  a  very  large  order,  but  I  have  con- 
versed with  gentlemen  on  the  Eastern  seaboard 
who  feel  that  this  should  be  done.  They  go 
the  length  of  saying  that  if  this  chastisement  is 
neglected  the  republic  will  perish.  Of  course, 
the  West  doesn't  want  the  republic  to  perish;  it 
honestly  believes  itself  preordained  of  all  time 
to  preserve  the  republic.  It  sits  up  o'  nights 
to  consider  ways  and  means  of  insuring  its 
preservation.  It  is  very  serious  and  doesn't  at 
all  like  being  chaffed  about  its  hatred  of  Wall 
Street  and  its  anxiety  to  pin  annoying  tick- 
tacks  on  the  windows  of  ruthless  corporations. 
It  is  going  to  get  everything  for  the  Folks  that 
it  can,  and  it  sees  nothing  improper  in  the  idea 
of  State-owned  elevators  or  of  fixing  by  law 
the  height  of  the  heels  on  the  slippers  of  its 


38    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

emancipated  women.  It  is  in  keeping  with 
the  cheery  contentment  of  the  West  that  it 
believes  that  it  has  "at  home"  or  can  summon 
to  its  R.  F.  D.  box  everything  essential  to  hu- 
man happiness. 

Across  this  picture  of  ease,  contentment,  and 
complacency  fell  the  cloud  of  war.  What  I  am 
attempting  is  a  record  of  transition,  and  I  have 
set  down  the  foregoing  with  a  consciousness 
that  our  recent  yesterdays  already  seem  remote; 
that  many  things  that  were  true  only  a  few 
months  ago  are  now  less  true,  though  it  is  none 
the  less  important  that  we  remember  them.  It 
is  my  hope  that  what  I  shall  say  of  that  period 
to  which  we  are  even  now  referring  as  "  before 
the  war  "  may  serve  to  emphasize  the  sharpness 
of  America's  new  confrontations  and  the  yield- 
ing, for  a  time  at  least,  of  the  pride  of  section- 
alism to  the  higher  demands  of  nationality. 


CHAPTER  II 
TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS 

*O  I  see  flashing  that  this  America  is  only  you  and  me, 
Its  power,  weapons,  testimony,  are  you  and  me, 
Its  crimes,  lies,  thefts,  defections,  are  you  and  me, 
Its  Congress  is  you  and  me,  the  officers,  capitols,  armies, 

ships,  are  you  and  me, 

Its  endless  gestations  of  new  States  are  you  and  me, 
The  war  (that  war  so  bloody  and  grim,  the  war  I  will 

henceforth  forget),  was  you  and  me, 
Natural  and  artificial  are  you  and  me, 
Freedom,  language,  poems,  employments,  are  you  and 

me, 
Past,  present,  future,  are  you  and  me." 

WHITMAN. 


A  the  end  of  a  week  spent  in  a  Middle 
Western   city  a  visitor  from  the  East 
inquired    wearily:    "Does  no  one  work 
in  this  town?"    The  answer  to  such  a  question 
is  that  of  course  everybody  works;    the  town 
boasts  no  man  of  leisure;   but  on  occasions  the 
citizens  play,  and  the  advent  of  any  properly 
certified  guest  affords  a  capital   excuse  for  a 
period   of   intensified   sociability.      "Welcome" 
is  writ  large  over  the  gates  of  all  Western  cities 
-  literally  in  letters  of  fire  at  railway-stations. 

39 


40    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

Approaching  a  town  the  motorist  finds  himself 
courteously  welcomed  and  politely  requested 
to  respect  the  local  speed  law,  and  as  he  de- 
parts a  sign  at  the  postern  thanks  him  and  urges 
his  return.  The  Western  town  is  distinguished 
as  much  by  its  generous  hospitality  as  by  its  en- 
terprise, its  firm  purpose  to  develop  new  terri- 
tory and  widen  its  commercial  influence.  The 
visitor  is  bewildered  by  the  warmth  with  which 
he  is  seized  and  scheduled  for  a  round  of  ex- 
hausting festivities.  He  may  enjoy  all  the  de- 
lights that  attend  the  triumphal  tour  of  a  debu- 
tante launched  upon  a  round  of  visits  to  the 
girls  she  knew  in  school  or  college;  and  he  will 
be  conscious  of  a  sincerity,  a  real  pride  and 
joy  in  his  presence,  that  warms  his  heart  to 
the  community.  Passing  on  from  one  town  to 
another,  say  from  Cincinnati  to  Cleveland, 
from  Kansas  City  to  Denver,  from  Omaha  to 
Minneapolis,  he  finds  that  news  of  his  approach 
has  preceded  him.  The  people  he  has  met  at 
his  last  stopping-place  have  wired  everybody 
they  know  at  the  next  point  in  his  itinerary  to 
be  on  the  lookout  for  him,  and  he  finds  that  in- 
stead of  entering  a  strange  port  there  are  friends 
-  veritable  friends  —  awaiting  him.  If  by 
chance  he  escapes  the  eye  of  the  reception  com- 
mittee and  enters  himself  on  the  books  of  an 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS          41 

inn,  he  is  interrupted  in  his  unpacking  by  offers 
of  lodging  in  the  homes  of  people  he  never  saw 
before. 

There  is  no  other  region  in  America  where 
so  much  history  has  been  crowded  into  so  brief 
a  period,  where  young  commonwealths  so  quickly 
attained  political  power  and  influence  as  in  the 
Middle  West;  but  the  founding  of  States  and 
the  establishment  of  law  is  hardly  more  in- 
teresting than  the  transfer  to  the  wilderness  of 
the  dignities  and  amenities  of  life.  From  the 
verandas  of  country  clubs  or  handsome  villas 
scattered  along  the  Great  Lakes,  one  may  al- 
most witness  the  receding  pageant  of  discovery 
and  settlement.  In  Wisconsin  and  Michigan 
the  golfer  in  search  of  an  elusive  ball  has  been 
known  to  stumble  upon  an  arrow-head,  a  sig- 
nificant reminder  of  the  newness  of  the  land; 
and  the  motorist  flying  across  Ohio,  Indiana, 
and  Illinois  sees  log  cabins  that  survive  from 
the  earliest  days,  many  of  them  still  occupied. 

Present  comfort  and  luxury  are  best  viewed 
against  a  background  of  pioneer  life;  at  least 
the  sense  of  things  hoped  for  and  realized  in 
these  plains  is  more  impressive  as  one  ponders 
the  self-sacrifice  and  heroism  by  which  the  soil 
was  conquered  and  peopled.  The  friendliness, 
the  eagerness  to  serve  that  are  so  charming 


42     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

and  winning  in  the  West  date  from  those  times 
when  one  who  was  not  a  good  neighbor  was  a 
potential  enemy.  Social  life  was  largely  de- 
pendent upon  exigencies  that  brought  the  busy 
pioneers  together,  to  cut  timber,  build  homes, 
add  a  barn  to  meet  growing  needs,  or  to  assist 
in  "breaking"  new  acres.  The  women,  eagerly 
seizing  every  opportunity  to  vary  the  monot- 
ony of  their  lonely  lives,  gathered  with  the  men, 
and  while  the  axes  swung  in  the  woodland 
or  the  plough  turned  up  the  new  soil,  held  a 
quilting,  spun  flax,  made  clothing,  or  otherwise 
assisted  the  hostess  to  get  ahead  with  her  never- 
ending  labors.  To-day,  throughout  the  broad 
valley  the  grandchildren  and  great-grandchil- 
dren of  the  pioneers  ply  the  tennis-racket  and 
dance  in  country  club-houses  beside  lakes  and 
rivers  where  their  forebears  drove  the  plough 
or  swung  the  axe  all  day,  and  rode  miles  to  dance 
on  a  puncheon  floor.  There  was  marrying  and 
giving  in  marriage;  children  were  born  and 
"raised"  amid  conditions  that  cause  one  to 
smile  at  the  child-welfare  and  "better-baby" 
societies  of  these  times.  The  affections  were 
deepened  by  the  close  union  of  the  family  in  the 
intimate  association  of  common  tasks.  Here, 
indeed,  was  a  practical  application  of  the  dic- 
tum of  one  for  all  and  all  for  one. 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  43 

The  lines  of  contact  between  isolated  clear- 
ings and  meagre  settlements  were  never  wholly 
broken.  Months  might  pass  without  a  house- 
hold seeing  a  strange  face,  but  always  some 
one  was  on  the  way  —  an  itinerant  missionary, 
a  lost  hunter,  a  pioneer  looking  for  a  new  field 
to  conquer.  Motoring  at  ease  through  the 
country,  one  marvels  at  the  journeys  accom- 
plished when  blazed  trails  were  the  only  high- 
ways. A  pioneer  railroad-builder  once  told 
me  of  a  pilgrimage  he  made  on  horseback  from 
northern  Indiana  to  the  Hermitage  in  Ten- 
nessee to  meet  Old  Hickory  face  to  face.  Jack- 
son had  captivated  his  boyish  fancy  and  this 
arduous  journey  was  a  small  price  to  pay  for 
the  honor  of  viewing  the  hero  on  his  own  acres. 
I  may  add  that  this  gentleman  achieved  his 
centennial,  remaining  a  steadfast  adherent  of 
Jacksonian  democracy  to  the  end  of  his  life. 
Once  I  accompanied  him  to  the  polls  and  he 
donned  a  silk  hat  for  the  occasion,  as  appropriate 
to  the  dignified  exercise  of  his  franchise. 

There  was  a  distinct  type  of  restless,  adven- 
turous pioneer  who  liked  to  keep  a  little  ahead 
of  civilization;  who  found  that  he  could  not 
breathe  freely  when  his  farm,  acquainted  for 
only  a  few  years  with  the  plough,  became  the 
centre  of  a  neighborhood.  Men  of  this  sort 


44     THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

persuaded  themselves  that  there  was  better 
land  to  be  had  farther  on,  though,  more  or  less 
consciously,  it  was  freedom  they  craved.  The 
exodus  of  the  Lincolns  from  Kentucky  through 
Indiana,  where  they  lingered  fourteen  years 
before  seeking  a  new  home  in  Illinois,  is  typical 
of  the  pioneer  restlessness.  In  a  day  when  the 
effects  of  a  household  could  be  moved  in  one 
wagon  and  convoyed  by  the  family  on  horse- 
back, these  transitions  were  undertaken  with 
the  utmost  light-heartedness.  Only  a  little 
while  ago  I  heard  a  woman  of  eighty  describe 
her  family's  removal  from  Kentucky  to  Illinois, 
a  wide  detour  being  made  that  they  might  visit 
a  distant  relative  in  central  Indiana.  This, 
from  her  recital,  must  have  been  the  jolliest 
of  excursions,  for  the  children  at  least,  with  the 
daily  experiences  of  fording  streams,  the  con- 
stant uncertainties  as  to  the  trail,  and  the  camp- 
ing out  in  the  woods  when  no  cabin  offered 
shelter. 

It  was  a  matter  of  pride  with  the  housewife 
to  make  generous  provision  for  "company," 
and  the  pioneer  annalists  dwell  much  upon  the 
good  provender  of  those  days,  when  venison 
and  wild  turkeys  were  to  be  had  for  the  killing 
and  corn  pone  or  dodger  was  the  only  bread. 
The  reputation  of  being  a  good  cook  was  quite 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  45 

as  honorable  as  that  of  being  a  successful  farmer 
or  a  lucky  hunter.  The  Princeton  University 
Press  has  lately  resurrected  and  republished 
"The  New  Purchase,"  by  Baynard  Rush  Hall, 
a  graduate  of  Union  College  and  of  Princeton 
Theological  Seminary,  one  of  the  raciest  and 
most  amusing  of  mid-Western  chronicles.  Hall 
sought  "a  life  of  poetry  and  romance  amid  the 
rangers  of  the  wood,"  and  in  1823  became  prin- 
cipal of  Indiana  Seminary,  the  precursor  of  the 
State  University.  Having  enjoyed  an  ampler 
experience  of  life  than  his  neighbors,  he  was 
able  to  view  the  pioneers  with  a  degree  of  de- 
tachment, though  sympathetically. 

No  other  contemporaneous  account  of  the 
social  life  of  the  period  approaches  this  for 
fulness;  certainly  none  equals  it  in  humor. 
The  difficulties  of  transportation,  the  encom- 
passing wilderness  all  but  impenetrable,  the 
oddities  of  frontier  character,  the  simple  menage 
of  the  pioneer,  his  food,  and  the  manner  of  its 
preparation,  and  the  general  social  spectacle, 
are  described  by  a  master  reporter.  One  of 
his  best  chapters  is  devoted  to  a  wedding  and 
the  subsequent  feast,  where  a  huge  potpie  was 
the  piece  de  resistance.  He  estimates  that  at 
least  six  hens,  two  chanticleers,  and  four  pullets 
were  lodged  in  this  doughy  sepulchre,  which 


46     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

was  encircled  by  roast  wild  turkeys  "stuffed" 
with  Indian  meal  and  sausages.  Otherwise 
there  were  fried  venison,  fried  turkey,  fried 
chicken,  fried  duck,  fried  pork,  and,  he  adds, 
"for  anything  I  knew,  even  fried  leather!" 

II 

The  pioneer  adventure  in  the  trans-Missis- 
sippi States  differed  materially  from  that  of 
the  timbered  areas  of  the  old  Northwest  Terri- 
tory. I  incline  to  the  belief  that  the  forest 
primeval  had  a  socializing  effect  upon  those 
who  first  dared  its  fastnesses,  binding  the  lonely 
pioneers  together  by  mysterious  ties  which  the 
open  plain  lacked.  The  Southern  infusion  in 
the  States  immediately  north  of  the  Ohio  un- 
doubtedly influenced  the  early  social  life  greatly. 
The  Kentuckian,  for  example,  carried  his  pas- 
sion for  sociability  into  Indiana,  and  pages  of 
pioneer  history  in  the  Hoosier  State  might  have 
been  lifted  bodily  from  Kentucky  chronicles, 
so  similar  is  their  flavor.  The  Kentuckian  was 
always  essentially  social;  he  likes  "the  swarm," 
remarks  Mr.  James  Lane  Allen.  To  seek  a 
contrast,  the  early  social  picture  in  Kansas  is 
obscured  by  the  fury  of  the  battle  over  slavery 
that  dominates  the  foreground.  Other  States 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  47 

fought  Indians  and  combated  hunger,  survived 
malaria,  brimstone  and  molasses  and  calomel, 
and  kept  in  good  humor,  but  the  settlement  of 
Kansas  was  attended  with  battle,  murder,  and 
sudden  death.  The  pioneers  of  the  Northwest 
Territory  began  life  in  amiable  accord  with 
their  neighbors;  Kansas  gained  Statehood  after 
a  bitter  war  with  her  sister  Missouri,  though 
the  contest  may  not  be  viewed  as  a  local  dis- 
turbance, but  as  a  "curtain  raiser"  for  the 
drama  of  the  Civil  War.  When  in  the  strenuous 
fifties  Missouri  undertook  to  colonize  the  Kansas- 
plains  with  pro-slavery  sympathizers,  New  Eng- 
land rose  in  majesty  to  protest.  She  not  only 
protested  vociferously  but  sent  colonies  to  hold 
the  plain  against  the  invaders.  Life  in  the 
Kansas  of  those  years  of  strife  was  unrelieved 
by  any  gayeties.  One  searches  in  vain  for  traces 
of  the  comfort  and  cheer  that  are  a  part  of  the 
tradition  of  the  settlement  of  the  Ohio  valley 
States.  Professor  Spring,  in  his  history  of  Kan- 
sas, writes:  "For  amusement  the  settlers  were 
left  entirely  to  their  own  resources.  Lectures, 
concert  troupes,  and  shows  never  ventured  far 
into  the  wilderness.  Yet  there  was  much  broad, 
rollicking,  noisy  merrymaking,  but  it  must  be 
confessed  that  rum  and  whiskey  -  -  lighter 
liquors  like  wine  and  beer  could  not  be  ob- 


48    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

tained  —  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  it.  ... 
Schools,  churches,  and  the  various  appliances 
of  older  civilization  got  under  way  and  made 
some  growth;  but  they  were  still  in  a  primitive, 
inchoate  condition  when  Kansas  took  her  place 
in  the  Union." 

There  is  hardly  another  American  State  in 
which  the  social  organization  may  be  observed  as 
readily  as  in  Kansas.  For  the  reason  that  its 
history  and  the  later  "social  scene"  constitute 
so  compact  a  picture  I  find  myself  returning 
to  it  frequently  for  illustrations  and  compari- 
sons. Born  amid  tribulation,  having  indeed 
been  subjected  to  the  ordeal  of  fire,  Kansas 
marks  Puritanism's  farthest  west;  her  people 
are  still  proud  to  call  their  State  "The  Child 
of  Plymouth  Rock."  The  New  Englanders 
who  settled  the  northeastern  part  of  the  Terri- 
tory were  augmented  after  the  Civil  War  by 
men  of  New  England  stock  who  had  established 
themselves  in  Ohio,  Illinois,  and  Iowa  when 
the  war  began,  and  having  acquired  soldiers' 
homestead  rights  made  use  of  them  to  pre-empt 
land  in  the  younger  commonwealth.  The  in- 
flux of  veterans  after  Appomattox  sealed  the 
right  of  Kansas  to  be  called  a  typical  American 
State.  "Kansas  sent  practically  every  able- 
bodied  man  of  military  age  to  the  Civil  War," 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS          49 

says  Mr.  William  Allen  White,  "and  when  they 
came  back  literally  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
other  soldiers  came  with  them  and  took  home- 
steads." For  thirty  years  after  Kansas  attained 
Statehood  her  New  Englanders  were  a  domi- 
nating factor  in  her  development,  and  their  in- 
fluence is  still  clearly  perceptible.  The  State 
may  be  considered  almost  as  one  vast  planta- 
tion, peopled  by  industrious,  aspiring  men  and 
women.  Class  distinctions  are  little  known; 
snobbery,  where  it  exists,  hides  itself  to  avoid 
ridicule;  the  State  abounds  in  the  "comfort- 
ably well  off"  and  the  "well-to-do";  millionaires 
are  few  and  well  tamed;  every  other  family 
boasts  an  automobile. 

While  the  political  and  economic  results  of 
the  Civil  War  have  been  much  written  of,  its 
influence  upon  the  common  relationships  of 
life  in  the  border  States  that  it  so  profoundly 
affected  are  hardly  less  interesting.  The  pioneer 
period  was  becoming  a  memory,  the  conditions 
of  life  had  grown  comfortable,  and  there  was 
ease  in  Zion  when  the  young  generation  met 
a  new  demand  upon  their  courage.  Many  were 
permanently  lifted  out  of  the  sphere  to  which 
they  were  born  and  thrust  forth  into  new  avenues 
of  opportunity.  This  was  not  of  course  peculiar 
to  the  West,  though  in  the  Mississippi  valley 


50     THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

the  effects  were  so  closely  intermixed  with  those 
of  the  strenuous  post-bellum  Apolitical  history 
that  they  are  indelibly  written  into  the  record. 
Local  hostilities  aroused  by  the  conflict  were  of 
long  duration;  the  copperhead  was  never  for- 
given for  his  disloyalty;  it  is  remembered  to 
this  day  against  his  descendants.  Men  who, 
in  all  likelihood,  would  have  died  in  obscurity 
but  for  the  changes  and  chances  of  war  rose 
to  high  position.  The  most  conspicuous  of  such 
instances  is  afforded  by  Grant,  whose  circum- 
stances and  prospects  were  the  poorest  when 
Fame  flung  open  her  doors  to  him. 

Nothing  pertaining  to  the  war  of  the  sixties 
impresses  the  student  more  than  the  rapidity 
with  which  reputations  were  made  or  lost  or 
the  effect  upon  the  participants  of  their  mili- 
tary experiences.  From  farms,  shops,  and 
offices  men  were  flung  into  the  most  stirring 
scenes  the  nation  had  known.  They  emerged 
with  the  glory  of  battle  upon  them  to  become 
men  of  mark  in  their  communities,  wearing  a 
new  civic  and  social  dignity.  It  would  be  in- 
teresting to  know  how  many  of  the  survivors 
attained  civil  office  as  the  reward  of  their  valor; 
in  the  Western  States  I  should  say  that  few 
escaped  some  sort  of  recognition  on  the  score 
of  their  military  services.  In  the  city  that  I 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  51 

know  best  of  all,  where  for  three  decades  at 
least  the  most  distinguished  citizens  —  cer- 
tainly the  most  respected  and  honored  —  were 
veterans  of  the  Civil  War,  it  has  always  seemed 
to  me  remarkable  and  altogether  reassuring  as 
proof  that  we  need  never  fear  the  iron  collar 
of  militarism,  that  those  men  of  the  sixties  so 
quickly  readjusted  themselves  in  peaceful  occu- 
pations. There  were  those  who  capitalized 
their  military  achievements,  but  the  vast  number 
had  gone  to  war  from  the  highest  patriotic  mo- 
tives and,  having  done  their  part,  were  glad  to 
be  quit  of  it.  The  shifting  about  and  the  new 
social  experiences  were  responsible  for  many 
romances.  Men  met  and  married  women  of 
whose  very  existence  they  would  have  been 
ignorant  but  for  the  fortunes  of  war,  and  in 
these  particulars  history  \vas  repeating  itself 
last  year  before  our  greatest  military  adventure 
had  really  begun ! 

The  sudden  appearance  of  thousands  of  khaki- 
clad  young  men  in  the  summer  and  fall  of  1917 
marked  a  new  point  of  orientation  in  American 
life.  Romance  mounted  his  charger  again; 
everywhere  one  met  the  wistful  war  bride.  The 
familiar  academic  ceremonials  of  college  com- 
mencements in  the  West  as  in  the  East  were 
transformed  into  tributes  to  the  patriotism  of 


52    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

the  graduates  and  undergraduates  already  under 
arms  and  present  in  their  new  uniforms.  These 
young  men,  encountered  in  the  street,  in  clubs, 
in  hurried  visits  to  their  offices  as  they  trans- 
ferred their  affairs  to  other  hands,  were  im- 
pressively serious  and  businesslike.  In  the 
training-camps  one  heard  familiar  college  songs 
rather  than  battle  hymns.  Even  country- 
club  dances  and  other  functions  given  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  young  soldiers  were  lack- 
ing in  light-heartedness.  In  a  Minneapolis 
country  club  much  affected  by  candidates  for 
commissions  at  Fort  Snelling,  the  Saturday- 
night  dances  closed  with  the  playing  of  "The 
Star-Spangled  Banner";  every  face  turned  in- 
stantly toward  the  flag;  every  hand  came  to 
salute;  and  the  effect  was  to  send  the  whole 
company,  young  and  old,  soberly  into  the  night. 
In  the  three  training  and  mobilizing  camps  that 
I  visited  through  the  first  months  of  prepara- 
tion —  Forts  Benjamin  Harrison,  Sheridan,  and 
Snelling  —  there  was  no  ignoring  the  quiet, 
dogged  attitude  of  the  sons  of  the  West,  who 
had  no  hatred  for  the  people  they  were  enlisted 
to  fight  (I  heard  many  of  them  say  this),  but 
were  animated  by  a  feeling  that  something 
greater  even  than  the  dignity  and  security  of 
this  nation,  something  of  deep  import  to  the 
whole  world  had  called  them. 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  53 


III 


In  "The  American  Scene"  Mr.  James  ignored 
the  West,  perhaps  as  lacking  in  those  back- 
grounds and  perspectives  that  most  strongly 
appealed  to  him.  It  is  for  the  reason  that  "po- 
lite society,"  as  we  find  it  in  Western  cities, 
has  only  the  scant  pioneer  background  that  I 
have  indicated  that  it  is  so  surprising  in  the 
dignity  and  richness  of  its  manifestations.  If 
it  is  a  meritorious  thing  for  people  in  prosperous 
circumstances  to  spend  their  money  generously 
and  with  good  taste  in  the  entertainment  of 
their  friends,  to  effect  combinations  of  the  con- 
genial in  balls,  dinners,  musicals,  and  the  like, 
then  the  social  spectacle  in  the  Western  provinces 
is  not  a  negligible  feature  of  their  activities.  If 
an  aristocracy  is  a  desirable  thing  in  America, 
the  West  can,  in  its  cities  great  and  small,  pro- 
duce it,  and  its  quality  and  tone  will  be  found 
quite  similar  to  the  aristocracy  of  older  com- 
munities. We  of  the  West  are  not  so  callous 
as  our  critics  would  have  us  appear,  and  we 
are  only  politely  tolerant  of  the  persistence  with 
which  fiction  and  the  drama  are  illuminated 
with  characters  whose  chief  purpose  is  to  illus- 
trate the  raw  vulgarity  of  Western  civilization. 
Such  persons  are  no  more  acceptable  socially 


54     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

in  Chicago,  Minneapolis,  or  Denver  than  they 
are  in  New  York.  The  country  is  so  closely 
knit  together  that  a  fashionable  gathering  in 
one  place  presents  very  much  the  appearance 
of  a  similar  function  in  another.  New  York, 
socially  speaking,  is  very  hospitable  to  the 
Southerner;  the  South  has  a  tradition  of  aris- 
tocracy that  the  West  lacks.  In  both  New 
York  and  Boston  a  very  different  tone  char- 
acterizes the  mention  of  a  Southern  girl  and 
any  reference  to  a  daughter  of  the  West.  The 
Western  girl  may  be  every  bit  as  "nice"  and 
just  as  cultivated  as  the  Southern  girl:  they 
would  be  indistinguishable  one  from  the  other 
save  for  the  Southern  girl's  speech,  which  we 
discover  to  be  not  provincial  but  "so  charm- 
ingly Southern." 

Perhaps  I  may  here  safel}r  record  my  impa- 
tience of  the  pretension  that  provincialism  is 
anywhere  admirable.  A  provincial  character 
may  be  interesting  and  amusing  as  a  type;  he 
may  be  commendably  curious  about  a  great  num- 
ber of  things  and  even  possess  considerable  in- 
formation, without  being  blessed  with  the  vision 
to  correlate  himself  with  the  world  beyond  the 
nearest  haystack.  I  do  not  share  the  opinion 
of  some  of  my  compatriots  of  the  Western 
provinces  that  our  speech  is  really  the  standard 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS  55 

English,  that  the  Western  voice  is  impeccable, 
or  that  culture  and  manners  have  attained 
among  us  any  noteworthy  dignity  that  entitles 
us  to  strut  before  the  rest  of  the  world.  Cul- 
ture is  not  a  term  to  be  used  lightly,  and  cul- 
ture, as,  say,  Matthew  Arnold  understood  it 
and  labored  to  extend  its  sphere,  is  not  more 
respected  in  these  younger  States  than  else- 
where in  America.  We  are  offering  innumerable 
vehicles  of  popular  education;  we  point  with 
pride  to  public  schools,  State  and  privately 
endowed  universities,  and  to  smaller  colleges 
of  the  noblest  standards  and  aims;  but,  even 
with  these  so  abundantly  provided,  it  cannot 
be  maintained  that  culture  in  its  strict  sense 
cries  insistently  to  the  Western  imagination. 
There  are  people  of  culture,  yes;  there  are 
social  expressions  both  interesting  and  charm- 
ing; but  our  preoccupations  are  mainly  with 
the  utilitarian,  an  attitude  wholly  defensible 
and  explainable  in  the  light  of  our  newness, 
the  urgent  need  of  bread-winning  in  our  recent 
yesterdays.  However,  with  the  easing  in  the 
past  fifty  years  of  the  conditions  of  life  there 
followed  quite  naturally  a  restlessness,  an  eager- 
ness to  fill  and  drain  the  cup  of  enjoyment,  that 
was  only  interrupted  by  our  entrance  into  the 
world  war.  There  are  people,  rich  and  poor, 


56    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

in  these  States  who  are  devotedly  attached  to 
"whatsoever  things  are  lovely,"  but  that  they 
exert  any  wide  influence  or  color  deeply  the 
social  fabric  is  debatable.  It  is  possible  that 
"sweetness  and  light,"  as  we  shall  ultimately 
attain  them,  will  not  be  an  efflorescence  of  litera- 
ture or  the  fine  arts,  but  a  realization  of  justice, 
highly  conceived,  and  a  perfected  system  of 
government  that  will  assure  the  happiness, 
contentment,  and  peace  of  the  great  body  of 
our  citizenry. 

In  the  smaller  Western  towns,  especially 
where  the  American  stock  is  dominant,  lines 
of  social  demarcation  are  usually  obscure  to 
the  vanishing-point.  Schools  and  churches  are 
here  a  democratizing  factor,  and  a  woman  who 
"keeps  help"  is  very  likely  to  be  apologetic 
about  it;  she  is  anxious  to  avoid  the  appear- 
ance of  "uppishness"  — an  unpardonable  sin. 
It  is  impossible  for  her  to  ignore  the  fact  that 
the  "girl"  in  her  kitchen  has,  very  likely,  gone 
to  school  with  her  children  or  has  been  a  mem- 
ber of  her  Sunday-school  class.  The  reluctance 
of  American  girls  to  accept  employment  as 
house-servants  is  an  aversion  not  to  be  over- 
come in  the  West.  Thousands  of  women  in 
comfortable  conditions  of  life  manage  their 
homes  without  outside  help  other  than  that  of 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS          57 

a  neighborhood  man  or  a  versatile  syndicate 
woman  who  "comes  in"  to  assist  in  a  weekly 
cleaning. 

There  is  a  type  of  small- town  woman  who 
makes  something  quite  casual  and  incidental 
of  the  day's  tasks.  Her  social  enjoyments  are 
in  no  way  hampered  if,  in  entertaining  com- 
pany, she  prepares  with  her  own  hands  the 
viands  for  the  feast.  She  takes  the  greatest 
pride  in  her  household;  she  is  usually  a  capital 
cook  and  is  not  troubled  by  any  absurd  feeling 
that  she  has  "demeaned"  herself  by  preparing 
and  serving  a  meal.  She  does  this  exceedingly 
well,  and  rises  without  embarrassment  to  change 
the  plates  and  bring  in  the  salad.  The  salad  is 
excellent  and  she  knows  it  is  excellent  and  sub- 
mits with  becoming  modesty  to  praise  of  her 
handiwork.  In  homes  which  it  is  the  highest 
privilege  to  visit  a  joke  is  made  of  the  house- 
keeping. The  lady  of  the  house  performs  the 
various  rites  in  keeping  with  maternal  tradition 
and  the  latest  approved  text-books.  You  may, 
if  you  like,  accompany  her  to  the  kitchen  and 
watch  the  broiling  of  your  chop,  noting  the  per- 
fection of  the  method  before  testing  the  result, 
and  all  to  the  accompaniment  of  charming  talk 
about  life  and  letters  or  what  you  will.  Cor- 
porate feeding  in  public  mess-halls  will  make 


58    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

slow  headway  with  these  strongly  individualistic 
women  of  the  new  generation  who  read  pro- 
digiously, manage  a  baby  with  their  eyes  on 
Pasteur,  and  are  as  proud  of  their  biscuits 
as  of  their  club  papers,  which  we  know  to  be 
admirable. 

Are  women  less  prone  to  snobbishness  than 
men  ?  Contrary  to  the  general  opinion,  I  think 
they  are.  Their  gentler  natures  shrink  from  un- 
kindness,  from  the  petty  cruelties  of  social  dif- 
ferentiation which  may  be  made  very  poignant 
in  a  town  of  five  or  ten  thousand  people,  where 
one  cannot  pretend  with  any  degree  of  plausibil- 
ity that  one  does  not  know  one's  neighbor,  or 
that  the  daughter  of  a  section  foreman  or  the 
son  of  the  second-best  grocer  did  not  sit  beside 
one's  own  Susan  or  Thomas  in  the  public  school. 
The  banker's  offspring  may  find  the  children  of 
the  owner  of  the  stave-factory  or  the  planing- 
mill  more  congenial  associates  than  the  chil- 
dren on  the  back  streets;  but  when  the  banker's 
wife  gives  a  birthday  party  for  Susan  the  invi- 
tations are  not  limited  to  the  children  of  the 
immediate  neighbors  but  include  every  child  in 
town  who  has  the  slightest  claim  upon  her  hos- 
pitality. The  point  seems  to  be  established 
that  one  may  be  poor  and  yet  be  "nice";  and 
this  is  a  very  comforting  philosophy  and  no 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  59 

mean  touchstone  of  social  fitness.  I  may  add 
that  the  mid-Western  woman,  in  spite  of  her 
strong  individualism  in  domestic  matters,  is, 
broadly  speaking,  fundamentally  socialistic.  She 
is  the  least  bit  uncomfortable  at  the  thought  of 
inequalities  of  privilege  and  opportunity.  Not 
long  ago  I  met  in  Chicago  an  old  friend,  a  man 
who  has  added  greatly  to  an  inherited  fortune. 
To  my  inquiry  as  to  what  he  was  doing  in  town 
he  replied  ruefully  that  he  was  going  to  buy  his 
wife  some  clothes !  He  explained  that  in  her 
preoccupation  with  philanthropy  and  social 
welfare  she  had  grown  not  merely  indifferent 
to  the  call  of  fashion,  but  that  she  seriously 
questioned  her  right  to  adorn  herself  while 
her  less  favored  sisters  suffered  for  life's  neces- 
sities. This  is  an  extreme  case,  though  I  can 
from  my  personal  acquaintance  duplicate  it 
in  half  a  dozen  instances  of  women  born  to 
ease  and  able  to  command  luxury  who  very 
sincerely  share  this  feeling. 


IV 


The  social  edifice  is  like  a  cabinet  of  file-boxes 
conveniently  arranged  so  that  they  may  be 
drawn  out  and  pondered  by  the  curious.  The 
seeker  of  types  is  so  prone  to  look  for  the  ec- 


60    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

centric,  the  fantastic  (and  I  am  not  without 
my  interest  in  these  varieties),  which  so  aston- 
ishingly repeat  themselves,  that  he  is  likely 
to  ignore  the  claims  of  the  normal,  the  real 
"folksy"  bread-and-butter  people  who  are,  after 
all,  the  mainstay  of  our  democracy.  They  are 
not  to  be  scornfully  waved  aside  as  bourgeoisie, 
or  prodded  with  such  ironies  as  Arnold  ap- 
plied to  the  middle  class  in  England.  They 
constitute  the  most  interesting  and  admirable 
of  our  social  strata.  There  is  nothing  quite 
like  them  in  any  other  country;  nowhere  else 
have  comfort,  opportunity,  and  aspiration  pro- 
duced the  same  combination. 

The  traveller's  curiosity  is  teased  constantly, 
as  he  cruises  through  the  towns  and  cities  of 
the  Middle  West,  by  the  numbers  of  homes 
that  cannot  imaginably  be  maintained  on  less 
than  five  thousand  dollars  a  year.  The 
economic  basis  of  these  establishments  invites 
speculation;  in  my  own  city  I  am  ignorant  of 
the  means  by  which  hundreds  of  such  homes 
are  conducted  —  homes  that  testify  to  the 
West's  growing  good  taste  in  domestic  archi- 
tecture and  shelter  people  whose  ambitions  are 
worthy  of  highest  praise.  There  was  a  time 
not  so  remote  when  I  could  identify  at  sight 
every  pleasure  vehicle  in  town.  A  man  who 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS  61 

kept  a  horse  and  buggy  was  thought  to  be 
"putting  on"  a  little;  if  he  set  up  a  carriage 
and  two  horses  he  was,  unless  he  enjoyed  public 
confidence  in  the  highest  degree,  viewed  with 
distrust  and  suspicion.  When  in  the  eighties 
an  Indianapolis  bank  failed,  a  cynical  old  citizen 
remarked  of  its  president  that  "no  wonder 
Blank  busted,  swelling  'round  in  a  carriage 
with  a  nigger  in  uniform"!  Nowadays  thou- 
sands of  citizens  blithely  disport  themselves 
in  automobiles  that  cost  several  times  the  value 
of  that  banker's  equipage.  I  have  confided 
my  bewilderment  to  friends  in  other  cities  and 
find  the  same  ignorance  of  the  economic  foun- 
dation of  this  prosperity.  The  existence,  in 
cities  of  one,  two,  and  three  hundred  thousand 
people  of  so  many  whom  we  may  call  non-pro- 
ducers —  professional  men,  managers,  agents  — 
offers  a  stimulating  topic  for  a  doctoral  thesis. 
I  am  not  complaining  of  this  phenomenon  —  I 
merely  wonder  about  it. 

The  West's  great  natural  wealth  and  extraor- 
dinary development  is  nowhere  more  strikingly 
denoted  than  in  the  thousands  of  comfortable 
homes,  in  hundreds  of  places,  set  on  forty  or 
eighty  foot  lots  that  were  tilled  land  or  forest 
fifty  or  twenty  years  ago.  Cruising  through 
the  West,  one  enters  every  city  through  new 


62    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

additions,  frequently  sliced  out  of  old  forests, 
with  the  maples,  elms,  or  beeches  carefully 
retained.  Bungalows  are  inadvertently  jotted 
down  as  though  enthusiastic  young  architects 
were  using  the  landscape  for  sketch-paper.  I 
have  inspected  large  settlements  in  which  no 
two  of  these  habitations  are  alike,  though  the 
difference  may  be  only  a  matter  of  pulling  the 
roof  a  little  lower  over  the  eyes  of  the  veranda 
or  some  idiosyncrasy  in  the  matter  of  the  chim- 
ney. The  trolley  and  the  low-priced  automobile 
are  continually  widening  the  urban  arc,  so  that 
the  acre  lot  or  even  a  larger  estate  is  within 
the  reach  of  city-dwellers  who  have  a  weakness 
for  country  air  and  home-grown  vegetables. 
A  hedge,  a  second  barricade  of  hollyhocks,  a 
flower-box  on  the  veranda  rail,  and  a  splash 
of  color  when  the  crimson  ramblers  are  in  bloom 
-  here  the  hunter  of  types  keeps  his  note-book 
in  hand  and  wishes  that  Henry  Cuyler  Bunner 
were  alive  to  bring  his  fine  perceptions  and 
sympathies  to  bear  upon  these  homes  and  their 
attractive  inmates. 

The  young  woman  we  see  inspecting  the 
mignonette  or  admonishing  the  iceman  to 
greater  punctuality  in  his  deliveries,  would 
have  charmed  a  lyric  from  Aldrich.  The  new 
additions  are,  we  know,  contrived  for  her  special 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  63 

delight.  She  and  her  neighbors  are  not  to  be 
confounded  with  young  wives  in  apartments 
with  kitchenette  attached  who  lean  heavily 
upon  the  delicatessen-shop  and  find  their  sole 
intellectual  stimulus  in  vaudeville  or  the  dumb 
drama.  It  is  inconceivable  that  any  one  should 
surprise  the  mistresses  of  these  bungalows  in 
a  state  of  untidiness,  that  their  babies  should 
not  be  sound  and  encouraging  specimens  of 
the  human  race,  or  that  the  arrival  of  unex- 
pected guests  should  not  find  their  pantries 
fortified  with  delicious  strawberries  or  trans- 
parent jellies  of  their  own  conserving.  These 
young  women  and  their  equally  young  hus- 
bands are  the  product  of  the  high  schools,  or 
perhaps  they  have  been  fellow  students  in  a 
State  university.  With  all  the  world  before 
them  where  to  choose  and  Providence  their 
guide,  they  have  elected  to  attack  life  together 
and  they  go  about  it  joyfully.  Let  no  one 
imagine  that  they  lead  starved  lives  or  lack 
social  diversion.  Do  the  housekeepers  not 
gather  on  one  another's  verandas  every  summer 
afternoon  to  discuss  the  care  of  infants  or  wars 
and  rumors  of  wars;  and  is  there  not  tennis 
when  their  young  lords  come  home?  On  oc- 
casions of  supreme  indulgence  the  neighbor- 
hood laundress  watches  the  baby  while  they 


64    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

go  somewhere  to  dance  or  to  a  play,  lecture,  or 
concert  in  town.  They  are  all  musical;  in- 
deed, the  whole  Middle  West  is  melodious  with 
the  tinklings  of  what  Mr.  George  Ade,  with 
brutal  impiety,  styles  "the  upright  agony  box." 
Or,  denied  the  piano,  these  habitations  at  least 
boast  the  tuneful  disk  and  command  at  will 
the  voices  of  Farrar  and  Caruso. 


It  is  in  summer  that  the  Middle  Western 
provinces  most  candidly  present  themselves, 
not  only  because  the  fields  then  publish  their 
richness  but  for  the  ease  with  which  the  people 
may  be  observed.  The  study  of  types  may 
then  be  pursued  along  the  multitudinous  ave- 
nues in  which  the  Folks  disport  themselves  in 
search  of  pleasure.  The  snioothing-out  processes, 
to  which  schools,  tailors,  dressmakers,  and 
"shine-'em"  parlors  contribute,  add  to  the  perils 
of  the  type-hunter.  Mr.  Howells's  remark  of 
twenty  years  ago  or  more,  that  the  polish  slowly 
dims  on  footgear  as  one  travels  westward,  has 
ceased  to  be  true;  types  once  familiar  are  so 
disguised  or  modified  as  to  be  unrecognizable. 
Even  the  Western  county-seat,  long  rich  in 
"character,"  now  flaunts  the  smartest  apparel 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS  65 

in  its  shop-windows,  and  when  it  reappears  in 
Main  Street  upon  the  forms  of  the  citizens  one 
is  convinced  of  the  local  prosperity  and  good 
taste.  The  keeper  of  the  livery-stable,  a  stout 
gentleman,  who  knows  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  in  the  county  and  aspires  t.o  the 
shrievalty,  has  bowed  before  the  all-pervasive 
automobile.  He  has  transformed  his  stable 
into  a  garage  (with  a  plate-glass  "front"  ex- 
posing the  latest  model)  and  hides  his  galluses 
(shamelessly  exhibited  in  the  day  of  the  horse) 
under  a  coat  of  modish  cut,  in  deference  to 
the  sensibilities  of  lady  patrons.  The  coun- 
try lawyer  is  abandoning  the  trailing  frock 
coat,  once  the  sacred  vestment  of  his  profes- 
sion, having  found  that  the  wrinkled  tails 
evoked  unfavorable  comment  from  his  sons 
and  daughters  when  they  came  home  from 
college.  The  village  drunkard  is  no  longer 
pointed  out  commiseratingly ;  local  option  and 
State-wTide  prohibition  have  destroyed  his  use- 
fulness as  an  awful  example,  and  his  resource- 
fulness is  taxed  to  the  utmost  that  he  may  keep 
tryst  with  the  skulking  bootlegger. 

Every  town  used  to  have  a  usurer,  a  mer- 
chant who  was  "mean"  (both  of  these  were 
frequently  pillars  in  the  church),  and  a  di- 
shevelled photographer  whose  artistic  ability 


66    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

was  measured  by  the  success  of  his  efforts  to 
make  the  baby  laugh.  He  solaced  himself  with 
the  flute  or  violin  between  "sittings,"  not  wholly 
without  reference  to  the  charms  of  the  milliner 
over  the  way.  In  the  towns  I  have  in  mind 
there  was  always  the  young  man  who  would 
have  had  a  brilliant  career  but  for  his  passion 
for  gambling,  the  aleatory  means  of  his  de- 
struction being  an  all-night  poker-game  in  the 
back  room  of  his  law-office  opposite  the  court- 
house. He  may  appropriately  be  grouped  with 
the  man  who  had  been  ruined  by  "going  secu- 
rity" for  a  friend,  who  was  spoken  of  pityingly 
while  the  beneficiary  of  his  misplaced  confidence, 
having  gained  affluence,  was  execrated.  The  race 
is  growing  better  and  wiser,  and  by  one  means 
and  another  these  types  have  been  forced  from  the 
stage;  or  perhaps  more  properly  it  should  be  said 
that  the  stage  and  the  picture-screen  alone  seem 
unaware  that  they  have  passed  into  oblivion. 

The  town  band  remains,  however,  and  it  is 
one  of  the  mysteries  of  our  civilization  that 
virtuosi,  capable  of  performing  upon  any  in- 
strument, exist  in  the  smallest  hamlet  and  meet 
every  Saturday  night  for  practice  in  the  lodge- 
room  over  the  grocery.  I  was  both  auditor  and 
spectator  of  such  a  rehearsal  one  night  last 
summer,  in  a  small  town  in  Illinois.  From  the 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS          67 

garage  across  the  street  it  was  possible  to  hear 
and  see  the  artists,  and  to  be  aware  of  the  leader's 
zeal  and  his  stern,  critical  attitude  toward  the 
performers.  He  seized  first  the  cornet  and  then 
the  trombone  (Hoosierese,  sliphorn)  to  dem- 
onstrate the  proper  phrasing  of  a  difficult  pas- 
sage. The  universal  Main  Street  is  made  fes- 
tive on  summer  nights  by  the  presence  of  the 
town's  fairest  daughters,  clothed  in  white  samite, 
mystic,  wonderful,  who  know  every  one  and 
gossip  democratically  with  their  friend  the  white- 
jacketed  young  man  who  lords  it  at  the  drug- 
gist's soda-fountain.  Such  a  group  gathered 
and  commented  derisively  upon  the  experiments 
of  the  musicians.  That  the  cornetist  was  in 
private  life  an  assistant  to  the  butcher  touched 
their  humor;  the  evocation  of  melody  and  the 
purveying  of  meat  seemed  to  them  irreconcila- 
ble. In  every  such  town  there  is  a  male  quar- 
tette that  sings  the  old-time  melodies  at  church 
entertainments  and  other  gatherings.  These 
vocalists  add  to  the  joy  of  living,  and  I  should 
lament  their  passing.  Their  efforts  are  more 
particularly  pleasing  when,  supplemented  by 
guitar  and  banjo,  they  move  through  verdurous 
avenues  thrumming  and  singing  as  they  go. 
Somewhere  a  lattice  opens  guardedly  —  how 
young  the  world  is  ! 


68    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

The  adventurous  boy  who,  even  in  times  of 
peace,  was  scornful  of  formal  education  and 
ran  away  to  enlist  in  the  navy  or  otherwise 
sought  to  widen  the  cramped  horizons  of  home 
-  and  every  town  has  this  boy  —  still  reap- 
pears at  intervals  to  report  to  his  parents  and 
submit  to  the  admiration  and  envy  of  his  old 
schoolmates  in  the  Main  Street  bazaars.  This 
type  endures  and  will,  very  likely,  persist  while 
there  are  seas  to  cross  and  battles  to  be  won. 
The  trumpetings  of  war  stir  the  blood  of  such 
youngsters,  and  since  our  entrance  into  the  war 
it  has  been  my  fortune  to  know  many  of  them, 
who  were  anxious  to  dare  the  skies  or  play  with 
death  in  the  waters  under  the  earth.  The  West 
has  no  monopoly  of  courage  or  daring,  but  it 
was  reassuring  to  find  that  the  best  blood  of 
the  Great  Valley  thrilled  to  the  cry  of  the  bugle. 
On  a  rail  way -train  I  fell  into  talk  with  a  young 
officer  of  the  national  army.  Finding  that  I 
knew  the  president  of  the  Western  college  that 
he  had  attended,  he  sketched  for  me  a  career 
which,  in  view  of  his  twenty-six  years,  was  al- 
most incredible.  At  eighteen  he  had  enlisted  in 
the  navy  in  the  hope  of  seeing  the  world,  but 
had  been  assigned  to  duty  as  a  hospital  orderly. 
Newport  had  been  one  of  his  stations;  there 
and  at  other  places  where  he  had  served  he 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS  69 

spent  his  spare  hours  in  study.  When  he  was 
discharged  he  signed  papers  on  a  British  mer- 
chant vessel.  The  ship  was  short-handed  and 
he  was  enrolled  as  an  able  seaman,  which,  he 
said,  was  an  unwarranted  compliment,  as  he 
proved  to  the  captain's  satisfaction  when  he 
was  sent  to  the  wheel  and  nearly  (as  he  put  it) 
bowled  over  a  lighthouse.  His  voyages  had 
carried  him  to  the  Orient  and  the  austral  seas. 
After  these  wanderings  he  was  realizing  an 
early  ambition  to  go  to  college  when  the  war- 
drum  sounded.  He  had  taken  the  training  at 
an  officer's  reserve  camp  and  was  on  his  way  to 
his  first  assignment.  The  town  he  mentioned 
as  his  home  is  hardly  more  than  a  whistling- 
point  for  locomotives,  and  I  wondered  later, 
as  I  flashed  through  it,  just  what  stirring  of  the 
spirit  had  made  its  peace  intolerable  and  sent 
him  roaming.  At  a  club  dinner  I  met  another 
man,  born  not  far  from  the  town  that  produced 
my  sailor-soldier,  who  had  fought  with  the 
Canadian  troops  from  the  beginning  of  the 
war  until  discharged  because  of  wounds  re- 
ceived on  the  French  front.  His  pocketful  of 
medals  —  he  carried  them  boyishly,  like  so 
many  marbles,  in  his  trousers  pocket !  —  in- 
cluded the  croix  de  guerre,  and  he  had  been 
decorated  at  Buckingham  Palace  by  King 


70     THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

George.  He  had  been  a  wanderer  from  boy- 
hood, his  father  told  me,  visiting  every  part  of 
the  world  that  promised  adventure  and,  inci- 
dentally, was  twice  wounded  in  the  Boer  War. 
The  evolution  of  a  type  is  not,  with  Mother 
Nature,  a  hasty  business,  and  in  attempting 
to  answer  an  inquiry  for  a  definition  of  the 
typical  mid-Western  girl,  I  am  disposed  to 
spare  myself  humiliating  refutations  by  de- 
claring that  there  is  no  such  thing.  In  the 
Rocky  Mountain  States  and  in  California,  we 
know,  if  the  motion-picture  purveyors  may 
be  trusted,  that  the  typical  young  woman  of 
those  regions  always  wears  a  sombrero  and 
lives  upon  the  back  of  a  bronco.  However,  in 
parts  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  where  there 
has  been  a  minimum  of  intermixture  since  the 
original  settlements,  one  is  fairly  safe  in  the 
choice  of  types.  I  shall  say  that  in  this  partic- 
ular territory  the  typical  young  woman  is  brown- 
haired,  blue  or  brown  of  eye,  of  medium  height, 
with  a  slender,  mobile  face  that  is  reminiscent 
of  Celtic  influences.  Much  Scotch-Irish  blood 
flowed  into  the  Ohio  valley  in  the  early  immi- 
gration, and  the  type  survives.  In  the  streets 
and  in  public  gatherings  in  Wisconsin  and 
Minnesota  the  German  and  Scandinavian  in- 
fusion is  clearly  manifest.  On  the  lake-docks 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  71 

and  in  lumber-camps  the  big  fellows  of  the 
North  in  their  Mackinaw  coats  and  close-fitting 
knit  caps  impart  a  heroic  note  to  the  landscape. 
In  January,  1917,  having  gone  to  St.  Paul  to 
witness  the  winter  carnival,  I  was  struck  by  the 
great  number  of  tall,  fair  men  who,  in  their  gay 
holiday  attire,  satisfied  the  most  exacting  ideal 
of  the  children  of  the  vikings.  They  trod  the 
snow  with  kingly  majesty,  and  to  see  their  per- 
formances on  skis  is  to  be  persuaded  that  the 
sagas  do  not  exaggerate  the  daring  of  their 
ancestors. 

"  What  was  that  ? "  said  Olaf,  standing 

On  the  quarter  deck. 
"Something  heard  I  like  the  stranding 

Of  a  shattered  wreck." 
Einar  then,  the  arrow  taking 

From  the  loosened  string, 
Answered  "that  was  Norway  breaking 
From  thy  hand,  O  king ! " 

The  search  for  characteristic  traits  is  likely 
to  be  more  fruitful  of  tangible  results  than  the 
attempt  to  fix  physical  types,  and  the  Western 
girl  who  steps  from  the  high  schools  to  the  State 
universities  that  so  hospitably  open  their  doors 
to  her  may  not  be  the  type,  but  she  is  indubi- 
tably a  type,  well  defined.  The  lore  of  the  ages 
has  been  preserved  and  handed  down  for  her 
special  benefit  and  she  absorbs  and  assimilates 


72     THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

it  with  ease  and  grace.  Man  is  no  enigma  to 
her;  she  begins  her  analysis  of  the  male  in  high 
school,  and  the  university  offers  a  post-graduate 
course  in  the  species.  Young  men  are  not  more 
serious  over  the  affairs  of  their  Greek-letter 
societies  than  these  young  women  in  the  manage- 
ment of  their  sororities,  which  seem,  after  school- 
days, to  call  for  constant  reunions.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  the  Western  woman  has  so  val- 
iantly fought  for  and  won  recognition  of  her 
rights  as  a  citizen.  A  girl  who  has  matched 
her  wits  against  boys  in  the  high  school  and 
again  in  a  State  university,  and  very  likely  has 
surpassed  them  in  scholarship,  must  be  forgiven 
for  assuming  that  the  civil  rights  accorded  them 
cannot  fairly  be  withheld  from  her.  The  many 
thousands  of  young  women  who  have  taken 
degrees  in  these  universities  have  played  havoc 
with  the  Victorian  tradition  of  womanhood. 
They  constitute  an  independent,  self-assured 
body,  zealous  in  social  and  civic  service,  and 
not  infrequently  looking  forward  to  careers. 

The  State  university  is  truly  a  well-spring 
of  democracy;  this  may  not  be  said  too  em- 
phatically. There  is  evidence  of  the  pleasantest 
comradeship  between  men  and  women  students, 
and  one  is  impressed  in  classrooms  by  the  pre- 
vailing good  cheer  and  earnestness. 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  73 

"And  one  said,  smiling,  Pretty  were  the  sight 
If  our  old  halls  could  change  their  sex,  and  flaunt 
With  prudes  for  proctors,  dowagers  for  deans, 
And  sweet  girl -graduates  in  their  golden  hair." 

Mild  flirtations  are  not  regarded  as  detri- 
mental to  the  attainment  of  sound  or  even 
distinguished  scholarship.  The  university's  so- 
cial life  may  be  narrow,  but  it  is  ampler  than 
that  of  the  farm  or  "home  town."  Against 
the  argument  that  these  institutions  tend  to 
the  promotion  of  provincial  insularity,  it  may 
be  said  that  there  is  a  compensating  benefit 
in  the  mingling  of  students  drawn  largely  from 
a  single  commonwealth.  A  gentleman  whose 
education  was  gained  in  one  of  the  older  East- 
ern universities  and  in  Europe  remarked  to  me 
that,  as  his  son  expected  to  succeed  him  in  the 
law,  he  was  sending  him  to  the  university  of 
his  own  State,  for  the  reason  that  he  would 
meet  there  young  men  whose  acquaintance 
would  later  be  of  material  assistance  to  him 
in  his  profession. 

VI 

The  value  of  the  Great  Lakes  as  a  social  and 
recreational  medium  is  hardly  less  than  their 
importance  as  commercial  highways.  The  salt- 
less  seas  are  lined  with  summer  colonies  and  in 


all  the  lake  cities  piers  and  beaches  are  a  boon 
to  the  many  who  seek  relief  from  the  heat  which 
we  of  the  West  always  speak  of  defensively  as 
essential  to  the  perfecting  of  the  corn  that  is 
our  pride.  Chicago's  joke  that  it  is  the  best  of 
summer  resorts  is  not  without  some  foundation; 
certainly  one  may  find  there  every  variety  of 
amusement  except  salt-water  bathing.  The 
salt's  stimulus  is  not  missed  apparently  by  the 
vast  number  of  citizens  —  estimated  at  two 
hundred  thousand  daily  during  the  fiercest 
heat  —  who  disport  themselves  on  the  shore. 
The  new  municipal  pier  is  a  prodigious  struc- 
ture, and  I  know  of  no  place  in  America  wThere 
the  student  of  mankind  may  more  profitably 
plant  himself  for  an  evening  of  contemplation. 
What  struck  me  in  a  series  of  observations 
of  the  people  at  play,  extending  round  the  lakes 
from  Chicago  to  Cleveland,  was  the  general 
good  order  and  decorum.  At  Detroit  I  was  in- 
troduced to  two  dancing  pavilions  on  the  river- 
side, where  the  prevailing  sobriety  was  most 
depressing  in  view  of  my  promise  to  the  illus- 
trator that  somewhere  in  our  pilgrimage  I 
should  tax  his  powers  with  scenes  of  depravity 
and  violence.  A  quarter  purchased  a  string  of 
six  tickets,  and  one  of  these  deposited  in  a  box 
entitled  the  owner  to  take  the  floor  with  a  part- 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  75 

ner.  As  soon  as  a  dance  and  its  several  encores 
was  over  the  floor  cleared  instantly  and  one 
was  required  to  relinquish  another  ticket.  There 
and  in  a  similar  dance-hall  in  a  large  Cleveland 
amusement  park  fully  one-third  of  the  patrons 
were  young  women  who  danced  together 
throughout  the  evening,  and  often  children 
tripped  into  the  picture.  Chaperonage  was  af- 
forded by  vigilant  parents  comfortably  estab- 
lished in  the  balcony.  The  Cleveland  resort, 
accessible  to  any  one  for  a  small  fee,  interested 
me  particularly  because  the  people  were  so 
well  apparelled,  so  " good-looking,"  and  the 
atmosphere  was  so  charged  with  the  spirit  of 
neighborliness.  The  favorite  dances  there  were 
the  waltz  (old  style),  the  fox-trot,  and  the 
schottische.  I  confess  that  this  recrudescence 
of  the  schottische  in  Cleveland,  a  progressive 
city  that  satisfies  so  many  of  the  cravings  of 
the  aspiring  soul  —  the  home  of  three-cent  car- 
fares and  a  noble  art  museum  —  greatly  aston- 
ished me.  But  for  the  fact  that  warning  of 
each  number  was  flashed  on  the  wall  I  should 
not  have  trusted  my  judgment  that  what  I 
beheld  was,  indeed,  the  schottische.  Frankly 
I  do  not  care  for  the  schottische,  and  it  may 
have  been  that  my  tone  or  manner  betokened 
resentment  at  its  revival;  at  any  rate  a  police- 


76     THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

man  whom  I  interviewed  outside  the  pavilion 
eyed  me  with  suspicion  when  I  expressed  sur- 
prise that  the  schottische  was  so  frequently  an- 
nounced. When  I  asked  why  the  one-step  was 
ignored  utterly  he  replied  contemptuously  that 
no  doubt  I  could  find  places  around  Cleveland 
where  that  kind  of  rough  stuff  was  permitted, 
but  "it  don't  go  here!""  I  did  not  undertake 
to  defend  the  one-step  to  so  stern  a  moralist, 
though  it  was  in  his  eye  that  he  wished  me  to 
do  so  that  he  might  reproach  me  for  my  world- 
liness.  I  do  not  believe  he  meant  to  be  unjust 
or  harsh  or  even  that  he  appraised  me  at  once 
as  a  seeker  of  the  rough  stuff  he  abhorred;  I 
had  merely  provided  him  with  an  excuse  for 
proclaiming  the  moral  standards  of  the  city 
of  Cleveland,  which  are  high.  I  made  note  of 
the  persistence  of  the  Puritan  influence  in  the 
Western  Reserve  and  hastily  withdrew  in  the 
direction  of  the  trolley. 

Innumerable  small  lakes  lie  within  the  far- 
flung  arms  of  the  major  lakes  adding  variety 
and  charm  to  a  broad  landscape,  and  offering 
summer  refuge  to  a  host  of  vacationists. 
Northern  Indiana  is  plentifully  sprinkled  with 
lakes  and  ponds;  in  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and 
Minnesota  there  are  thousands  of  them.  I  am 
moved  to  ask  —  is  a  river  more  companionable 


TYPES  AND   DIVERSIONS  77 

than  a  lake?  I  had  always  felt  that  a  river 
had  the  best  of  the  argument,  as  more  neigh- 
borly and  human,  and  I  am  still  disposed  to 
favor  those  streams  of  Maine  that  are  played 
upon  by  the  tides;  but  an  acquaintance  with 
a  great  number  of  these  inland  saucerfuls  of 
blue  water  has  made  me  their  advocate.  Happy 
is  the  town  that  has  a  lake  for  its  back  yard ! 
The  lakes  of  Minneapolis  (there  are  ten  within 
the  municipal  limits)  are  the  distinguishing 
feature  of  that  city.  They  seem  to  have  been 
planted  just  where  they  are  for  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  adorning  it,  and  they  have  been  pro- 
tected and  utilized  with  rare  prevision  and 
judgment.  To  those  who  would  chum  with  a 
river,  St.  Paul  offers  the  Mississippi,  where 
the  battlements  of  the  University  Club  project 
over  a  bluff  from  which  the  Father  of  Waters 
may  be  admired  at  leisure,  and  St.  Paul  will, 
if  you  insist,  land  you  in  one  of  the  most  de- 
lightful of  country  clubs  on  the  shore  of  White 
Bear  Lake.  I  must  add  that  the  country  club 
has  in  the  Twin  Cities  attained  a  rare  state  of 
perfection.  That  any  one  should  wing  far  afield 
from  either  town  in  summer  seems  absurd,  so 
blest  are  both  in  opportunities  for  outdoor 
enjoyment. 

Just   how   far   the   wide-spread   passion   for 


78     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

knitting  has  interfered  with  more  vigorous 
sports  among  our  young  women  I  am  unable 
to  say,  but  the  loss  to  links  and  courts  in  the 
Western  provinces  must  have  been  enormous. 
The  Minikahda  Club  of  Minneapolis  was  illu- 
minated one  day  by  a  girls'  luncheon.  These 
radiant  young  beings  entered  the  dining-room 
knitting  —  knitting  as  gravely  as  though  they 
were  weaving  the  destinies  of  nations  —  and 
maybe  they  were !  The  small  confusions  and 
perplexities  of  seating  the  party  of  thirty  were 
increased  by  the  dropping  of  balls  of  yarn  —  and 
stitches  !  The  round  table  seemed  to  be  looped 
with  yarn,  as  though  the  war  overseas  were 
tightening  its  cords  about  those  young  women, 
whose  brothers  and  cousins  and  sweethearts 
were  destined  to  the  battle-line. 

Longfellow  celebrated  in  song  'The  Four 
Lakes  of  Madison,"  which  he  apostrophized 
as  "lovely  handmaids."  I  treasure  the  memory 
of  an  approach  round  one  of  these  lakes  to 
Wisconsin's  capitol  (one  of  the  few  American 
State-houses  that  doesn't  look  like  an  appro- 
priation !)  through  a  mist  that  imparted  to  the 
dome  an  inthralling  illusion  of  detachment 
from  the  main  body  of  the  building.  The 
first  star  twinkled  above  it;  perhaps  it  was 
Wisconsin's  star  that  had  wandered  out  of  the 


On  a  craft  plying  the  waters  of  Erie  I  found  all  the  conditions 
outing  and  types  that  it  i.s  always  a  joy  to  meet. 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS  79 

galaxy  to   symbolize   for   an  hour   the  State's 
sovereignty  ! 

Whatever  one  may  miss  on  piers  and  in 
amusement  parks  in  the  way  of  types  may  be 
sought  with  confidence  on  the  excursion  steam- 
ers that  ply  the  lakes  —  veritable  arks  in  which 
humanity  in  countless  varieties  may  be  ob- 
served. The  voyager  is  satisfied  that  the  banana 
and  peanut  and  the  innocuous  "pop"  are  the 
ambrosia  and  nectar  of  our  democracy.  Before 
the  boat  leaves  the  dock  the  deck  is  littered; 
one's  note-book  bristles  with  memoranda  of 
the  untidiness  and  disorder.  On  a  craft  plying 
the  waters  of  Erie  I  found  all  the  conditions 
of  a  happy  outing  and  types  that  it  is  always  a 
joy  to  meet.  The  village  "cut-up,"  dashingly 
perched  on  the  rail;  the  girl  who  is  never  so 
happy  as  when  organizing  and  playing  games; 
the  young  man  who  yearns  to  join  her  group, 
but  is  prevented  by  unconquerable  shyness; 
the  child  that,  carefully  planted  in  the  most 
crowded  and  inaccessible  part  of  the  deck,  de- 
velops a  thirst  that  results  in  the  constant  agita- 
tion of  half  the  ship  as  his  needs  are  satisfied. 
There  is,  inevitably,  a  woman  of  superior  breed- 
ing who  has  taken  passage  on  the  boat  by  mis- 
take, believing  it  to  be  first-class,  which  it  so 
undeniably  is  not;  and  if  you  wear  a  syinpa- 


80     THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

thetic  countenance  she  will  confide  to  you  her 
indignation.  The  crunching  of  the  peanut-shell, 
the  poignant  agony  of  the  child  that  has  loved 
the  banana  not  wisely  but  too  well,  are  an  af- 
front to  this  lady.  She  announces  haughtily 
that  she's  sure  the  boat  is  overcrowded,  which 
it  undoubtedly  is,  and  that  she  means  to  report 
this  trifling  with  human  life  to  the  authorities. 
That  any  one  should  covet  the  cloistral  calm 
of  a  private  yacht  when  the  plain  folks  are  so 
interesting  and  amusing  is  only  another  proof 
of  the  constant  struggle  of  the  aristocratic  ideal 
to  fasten  itself  upon  our  continent. 

Below  there  was  a  dining-saloon,  but  its 
seclusion  was  not  to  be  preferred  to  an  assault 
upon  a  counter  presided  over  by  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  young  men  I  have  ever  seen. 
He  was  tall  and  of  a  slenderness,  with  a 
wonderful  mane  of  fair  hair  brushed  straight 
back  from  his  pale  brow.  As  he  tossed  sand- 
wiches and  slabs  of  pie  to  the  importunate  he 
jerked  his  hair  into  place  with  a  magnificent 
fling  of  the  head.  In  moments  when  the  ap- 
peals of  starving  supplicants  became  insistent, 
and  he  was  confused  by  the  pressure  for  atten- 
tion, he  would  rake  his  hair  with  his  fingers, 
and  then,  wholly  composed,  swing  round  and 
resume  the  filling  of  orders.  The  young  man 


The  Perry  monument  at  Put-in  Bay. 
A  huge  column  of  concrete  erected  in  commemoration  of  Commodore  Perry's  victc 


TYPES  AND  DIVERSIONS          81 

from  the  check-room  went  to  his  assistance, 
but  I  felt  that  he  resented  this  as  an  imperti- 
nence, a  reflection  upon  his  prowess.  He  needed 
no  assistance;  before  that  clamorous  company 
he  was  the  pattern  of  urbanity.  His  locks  were 
his  strength  and  his  consolation;  not  once  was 
his  aplomb  shaken,  not  even  when  a  stocky 
gentleman  fiercely  demanded  a  whole  pie ! 

While  Perry's  monument,  a  noble  seamark 
at  Put-in-Bay,  is  a  reminder  that  the  lakes 
have  played  their  part  in  American  history,  it 
is  at  Mackinac  that  one  experiences  a  sense  of 
antiquity.  The  white-walled  fort  is  a  link  be- 
tween the  oldest  and  the  newest,  and  the  imag- 
ination quickens  at  the  thought  of  the  first 
adventurous  white  man  who  ever  braved  the 
uncharted  waters;  while  the  eye  follows  the 
interminable  line  of  ore  barges  bound  for  the 
steel-mills  on  the  southern  curve  of  Michigan 
or  on  the  shores  of  Erie.  Commerce  in  these 
waters  began  with  the  fur-traders  travelling  in 
canoes;  then  came  sailing  vessels  carrying 
supplies  to  the  new  camps  and  settlements 
and  returning  with  lumber  or  produce;  but 
to-day  sails  are  rare  and  the  long  leviathans, 
fascinating  in  their  apparent  unwieldiness  and 
undeniable  ugliness,  are  the  dominant  medium 
of  transportation. 


82    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

One  night,  a  few  years  ago,  on  the  breezy 
terrace  of  one  of  the  handsomest  villas  in  the 
lake  region,  I  talked  with  the  head  of  a  great 
industry  whose  products  are  known  round  the 
world.  His  house,  furnished  with  every  com- 
fort and  luxury,  was  gay  with  music  and  the 
laughter  of  young  folk.  Through  the  straits 
crawled  the  ships,  bearing  lumber,  grain,  and 
ore,  signalling  their  passing  in  raucous  blasts 
to  the  lookout  at  St.  Ignace.  My  host  spoke 
with  characteristic  simplicity  and  deep  feeling 
of  the  poverty  of  his  youth  (he  came  to  America 
an  immigrant)  and  of  all  that  America  had 
meant  to  him.  He  was  near  the  end  of  his  days 
and  I  have  thought  often  of  that  evening,  of 
his  seigniorial  dignity  and  courtesy,  of  the  por- 
trait he  so  unconsciously  drew  of  himself  against 
a  background  adorned  with  the  rich  reward 
of  his  laborious  years.  And  as  he  talked  it 
seemed  that  the  power  of  the  West,  the  pro- 
digious energies  of  its  forests  and  fields  and 
hills,  its  enormous  potentialities  of  opportunity, 
became  something  concrete  and  tangible,  that 
flowed  in  an  irresistible  tide  through  the  heart 
of  the  nation. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST 

That  it  may  please  Thee  to  give  and  preserve  to  our  use  the 
kindly  fruits  of  the  earth,  so  that  in  due  time  we  may  enjoy 
them. — The  Litany. 

WHEN  spring  marches  up  the  Missis- 
sippi   valley    and    the    snows    of    the 
broad  plains  find  companionship  with 
the  snows  of  yesteryear,  the  traveller,  journey- 
ing east  or  west,  is  aware  that  life  has  awakened 
in  the  fields.    The  winter  wheat  lies  green  upon 
countless  acres;   thousands  of  ploughshares  turn 
the  fertile  earth;   the  farmer,  after  the  enforced 
idleness  of  winter,  is  again  a  man  of  action. 

Last  year,  that  witnessed  our  entrance  into 
the  greatest  of  wars,  the  American  farmer  pro- 
duced 3,159,000,000  bushels  of  corn,  660,000,000 
bushels  of  wheat,  1,587,000,000  bushels  of  oats, 
60,000,000  bushels  of  rye.  From  the  day  of 
our  entrance  into  the  world-struggle  against 
autocracy  the  American  farm  has  been  the 
subject  of  a  new  scrutiny.  In  all  the  chancel- 
leries of  the  world  crop  reports  and  estimates 
are  eagerly  scanned  and  tabulated,  for  while 
the  war  lasts  and  far  into  the  period  of  reha- 

83 


84     THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

bilitation  and  reconstruction  that  will  follow, 
America  must  bear  the  enormous  responsi- 
bility, not  merely  of  training  and  equipping 
armies,  building  ships,  and  manufacturing  muni- 
tions, but  of  feeding  the  nations.  The  farmer 
himself  is  roused  to  a  new  consciousness  of  his 
importance;  he  is  aware  that  thousands  of 
hands  are  thrust  toward  him  from  over  the 
sea,  that  every  acre  of  his  soil  and  every  ear 
of  corn  and  bushel  of  wheat  in  his  bins  or  in 
process  of  cultivation  has  become  a  factor  in 
the  gigantic  struggle  to  preserve  and  widen 
the  dominion  of  democracy. 


"Better  be  a  farmer,  son;  the  corn  grows 
while  you  sleep !" 

This  remark,  addressed  to  me  in  about  my 
sixth  year  by  my  great-uncle,  a  farmer  in  central 
Indiana,  lingered  long  in  my  memory.  There 
was  no  disputing  his  philosophy;  corn,  intel- 
ligently planted  and  tended,  undoubtedly  grows 
at  night  as  well  as  by  day.  But  the  choice  of 
seed  demands  judgment,  and  the  preparation 
of  the  soil  and  the  subsequent  care  of  the  grow- 
ing corn  exact  hard  labor.  My  earliest  im- 
pressions of  farm  life  cannot  be  dissociated 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST    85 

from  the  long,  laborious  days,  the  monotonous 
plodding  behind  the  plough,  the  incidental 
"chores,"  the  constant  apprehensions  as  to 
drought  or  flood.  The  country  cousins  I  visited 
in  Indiana  and  Illinois  were  all  too  busy  to 
have  much  time  for  play.  I  used  to  sit  on  the 
fence  or  tramp  beside  the  boys  as  they  drove 
the  plough,  or  watch  the  girls  milk  the  cows  or 
ply  the  churn,  oppressed  by  an  overmastering 
homesickness.  And  when  the  night  shut  down 
and  the  insect  chorus  floated  into  the  quiet 
house  the  isolation  was  intensified. 

My  father  and  his  forebears  were  born  and 
bred  to  the  soil;  they  scratched  the  earth  all 
the  way  from  North  Carolina  into  Kentucky 
and  on  into  Indiana  and  Illinois.  I  had  just 
returned,  last  fall,  from  a  visit  to  the  grave  of 
my  grandfather  in  a  country  churchyard  in 
central  Illinois,  round  which  the  corn  stood  in 
solemn  phalanx,  when  I  received  a  note  from 
my  fifteen-year-old  boy,  in  whom  I  had  hope- 
fully looked  for  atavistic  tendencies.  From 
his  school  in  Connecticut  he  penned  these  de- 
pressing tidings: 

"I  have  decided  never  to  be  a  farmer. 
Yesterday  the  school  was  marched  three  miles 
to  a  farm  where  the  boys  picked  beans  all  after- 
noon and  then  walked  back.  Much  as  I  like 


86     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

beans  and  want  to  help  Mr.  Hoover  conserve 
our  resources,  this  was  rubbing  it  in.  I  never 
want  to  see  a  bean  again." 

I  have  heard  a  score  of  successful  business 
and  professional  men  say  that  they  intended 
to  "make  farmers"  of  their  boys,  and  a  number 
of  these  acquaintances  have  succeeded  in  send- 
ing their  sons  through  agricultural  schools,  but 
the  great-grandchildren  of  the  Middle  Western 
pioneers  are  not  easily  persuaded  that  farming 
is  an  honorable  calling. 

It  isn't  necessary  for  gentlemen  who  watch 
the  tape  for  crop  forecasts  to  be  able  to  dif- 
ferentiate wheat  from  oats  to  appreciate  the 
importance  to  the  prosperous  course  of  general 
business  of  a  big  yield  in  the  grain-fields;  but 
to  the  average  urban  citizen  farming  is  some- 
thing remote  and  uninteresting,  carried  on  by 
men  he  never  meets  in  regions  that  he  only 
observes  hastily  from  a  speeding  automobile 
or  the  window  of  a  limited  train.  Great  numbers 
of  Middle  Western  city  men  indulge  in  farming 
as  a  pastime  —  and  in  a  majority  of  cases  it  is, 
from  the  testimony  of  these  absentee  proprietors, 
a  pleasant  recreation  but  an  expensive  one. 
However,  all  city  men  who  gratify  a  weakness 
for  farming  are  not  faddists;  many  such  land- 
owners manage  their  plantations  with  Intel- 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST    87 

ligence  and  make  them  earn  dividends.  Mr. 
George  Ade's  Indiana  farm,  Hazelden,  is  one 
of  the  State's  show-places.  The  playwright 
and  humorist  says  that  its  best  feature  is  a 
good  nine-hole  golf-course  and  a  swimming- 
pool,  but  from  his  "home  plant"  of  400  acres 
he  cultivates  2,000  acres  of  fertile  Hoosier  soil. 
A  few  years  ago  a  manufacturer  of  my  ac- 
quaintance, whose  family  presents  a  clear  urban 
line  for  a  hundred  years,  purchased  a  farm  on 
the  edge  of  a  river  —  more,  I  imagine,  for  the 
view  it  afforded  of  a  pleasant  valley  than  be- 
cause of  its  fertility.  An  architect  entered 
sympathetically  into  the  business  of  making 
habitable  a  century-old  log  house,  a  transition 
effected  without  disturbing  any  of  the  timbers 
or  the  irregular  lines  of  floors  and  ceilings.  So 
much  time  was  spent  in  these  restorations  and 
readjustments  that  the  busy  owner  in  despair 
fell  upon  a  mail-order  catalogue  to  complete 
his  preparations  for  occupancy.  A  barn,  tenant's 
house,  poultry-house,  pump  and  windmill,  fenc- 
ing, and  every  vehicle  and  tool  needed  on  the 
place,  including  a  barometer  and  wind-gauge, 
he  ordered  by  post.  His  joy  in  his  acres  was 
second  only  to  his  satisfaction  in  the  ease  with 
which  he  invoked  all  the  apparatus  necessary 
to  his  comfort.  Every  item  arrived  exactly 


88     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

as  the  catalogue  promised;  with  the  hired  man's 
assistance  he  fitted  the  houses  together  and 
built  a  tower  for  the  windmill  out  of  concrete 
made  in  a  machine  provided  by  the  same  estab- 
lishment. His  only  complaint  was  that  the 
catalogue  didn't  offer  memorial  tablets,  as  he 
thought  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  publish  in 
brass  the  merits  of  the  obscure  pioneer  who 
had  laboriously  fashioned  his  cabin  before  the 
convenient  method  of  post-card  ordering  had 
been  discovered. 


II 


Imaginative  literature  has  done  little  to  in- 
vest the  farm  with  glamour.  The  sailor  and 
the  warrior,  the  fisherman  and  the  hunter  are 
celebrated  in  song  and  story,  but  the  farmer 
has  inspired  no  ringing  saga  or  iliad,  and  the 
lyric  muse  has  only  added  to  the  general  joyless 
impression  of  the  husbandman's  life.  Hesiod 
and  Virgil  wrote  with  knowledge  of  farming; 
Virgil's  instructions  to  the  ploughman  only 
need  to  be  hitched  to  a  tractor  to  bring  them 
up  to  date,  and  he  was  an  authority  on  weather 
signs.  But  Horace  was  no  farmer;  the  Sabine 
farm  is  a  joke.  The  best  Gray  could  do  for 
the  farmer  was  to  send  him  homeward  plodding 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST    89 

his  weary  way.  Burns,  at  the  plough,  apos- 
trophized the  daisy,  but  only  by  indirection 
did  he  celebrate  the  joys  of  farm  life.  Words- 
worth's "Solitary  Reaper"  sang  a  melancholy 
strain;  "Snow-Bound"  offers  a  genial  picture, 
but  it  is  of  winter-clad  fields.  Carleton's  "Farm 
Ballads"  sing  of  poverty  and  domestic  infelicity. 
Riley  made  a  philosopher  and  optimist  of  his 
Indiana  farmer,  but  his  characters  are  to  be 
taken  as  individuals  rather  than  as  types.  There 
is,  I  suppose,  in  every  Middle  Western  county 
a  quizzical,  quaint  countryman  whose  sayings 
are  quoted  among  his  neighbors,  but  the  man 
with  a  hundred  acres  of  land  to  till,  wood  to 
cut,  and  stock  to  feed  is  not  greatly  given  to 
poetry  or  humor. 

English  novels  of  rural  life  are  numerous 
but  they  are  usually  in  a  low  key.  I  have  a 
lingering  memory  of  Hardy's  "  Woodlanders " 
as  a  book  of  charm,  and  his  tragic  "Tess"  is 
probably  fiction's  highest  venture  in  this  field. 
"Lorna  Doone"  I  remember  chiefly  because 
it  established  in  me  a  distaste  for  mutton. 
George  Eliot  and  George  Meredith  are  other 
English  novelists  who  have  written  of  farm 
life,  nor  may  I  forget  Mr.  Eden  Phillpotts. 
French  fiction,  of  course,  offers  brilliant  ex- 
ceptions to  the  generalization  that  literature 


90     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

has  neglected  the  farmer;  but,  in  spite  of  the 
vast  importance  of  the  farm  in  American  life, 
there  is  in  our  fiction  no  farm  novel  of  distinc- 
tion. Mr.  Hamlin  Garland,  in  "Main  Traveled 
Roads"  and  in  his  autobiographical  chronicle 
"A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border,"  has  thrust  his 
plough  deep;  but  the  truth  as  we  know  it  to 
be  disclosed  in  these  instances  is  not  hearten- 
ing. The  cowboy  is  the  jolliest  figure  in  our 
fiction,  the  farmer  the  dreariest.  The  shepherd 
and  the  herdsman  have  fared  better  in  all  litera- 
tures than  the  farmer,  perhaps  because  their 
vocations  are  more  leisurely  and  offer  oppor- 
tunities for  contemplation  denied  the  tiller  of 
the  soil.  The  Hebrew  prophets  and  poets  were 
mindful  of  the  pictorial  and  illustrative  values 
of  herd  and  flock.  It  is  written,  "Our  cattle 
also  shall  go  with  us,"  and,  journeying  across 
the  mountain  States,  where  there  is  always  a 
herd  blurring  the  range,  one  thinks  inevitably 
of  man's  long  migration  in  quest  of  the  Promised 
Land. 

The  French  peasant  has  his  place  in  art,  but 
here  again  we  are  confronted  by  joylessness, 
though  I  confess  that  I  am  resting  my  case 
chiefly  upon  Millet.  What  Remington  did  for 
the  American  cattle-range  no  one  has  done  for 
the  farm.  Fields  of  corn  and  wheat  are  painted 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST    91 

truthfully  and  effectively,  but  the  critics  have 
withheld  their  highest  praise  from  these  per- 
formances. Perhaps  a  corn-field  is  not  a  proper 
subject  for  the  painter;  or  it  may  be  that  the 
Maine  rocks  or  a  group  of  birches  against  a 
Vermont  hillside  "compose"  better  or  are  sup- 
ported by  a  nobler  tradition.  The  most  alluring 
pictures  I  recall  of  farm  life  have  been  advertise- 
ments depicting  vast  fields  of  wheat  through 
which  the  delighted  husbandman  drives  a  reaper 
with  all  the  jauntiness  of  a  king  practising  for 
a  chariot-race. 

I  have  thus  run  skippingly  through  the  cata- 
logues of  bucolic  literature  and  art  to  confirm 
my  impression  as  a  layman  that  farming  is 
not  an  affair  of  romance,  poetry,  or  pictures, 
but  a  business,  exacting  and  difficult,  that  may 
be  followed  with  success  only  by  industrious 
and  enlightened  practitioners.  The  first  settlers 
of  the  Mississippi  valley  stand  out  rather  more 
attractively  than  their  successors  of  what  I 
shall  call  the  intermediate  period.  There  was 
no  turning  back  for  the  pioneers  who  struck 
boldly  into  the  unknown,  knowing  that  if  they 
failed  to  establish  themselves  and  solve  the 
problem  of  subsisting  from  the  virgin  earth 
they  would  perish.  The  battle  was  to  the  strong, 
the  intelligent,  the  resourceful.  The  first  years 


on  a  new  farm  in  wilderness  or  prairie  were  a 
prolonged  contest  between  man  and  nature, 
nature  being  as  much  a  foe  as  an  ally.  That  the 
social  spark  survived  amid  arduous  labor  and 
daily  self-sacrifice  is  remarkable;  that  the  earth 
was  subdued  to  man's  will  and  made  to  yield 
him  its  kindly  fruits  is  a  tribute  to  the  splendid 
courage  and  indomitable  faith  of  the  settlers. 

These  Middle  Western  pioneers  were  in  the 
fullest  sense  the  sons  of  democracy.  The 
Southern  planter  with  the  traditions  of  the 
English  country  gentleman  behind  him  and, 
in  slavery  time,  representing  a  survival  of  the 
feudal  order,  had  no  counterpart  in  the  West, 
where  the  settler  was  limited  in  his  holdings  to 
the  number  of  acres  that  he  and  his  sons  could 
cultivate  by  their  own  labor.  I  explored,  last 
year,  much  of  the  Valley  of  Democracy,  both 
in  seed-time  and  in  harvest.  We  had  been 
drawn  at  last  into  the  world  war,  and  its  de- 
mands and  conjectures  as  to  its  outcome  were 
upon  the  lips  of  men  everywhere.  It  was  im- 
possible to  avoid  reflecting  upon  the  part  these 
plains  have  played  in  the  history  of  America 
and  the  increasing  part  they  are  destined  to 
play  in  the  world  history  of  the  future.  Every 
wheat  shoot,  every  stalk  of  corn  was  a  new 
testimony  to  the  glory  of  America.  Not  an 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST    93 

acre  of  land  but  had  been  won  by  intrepid 
pioneers  who  severed  all  ties  but  those  that 
bound  them  to  an  ideal,  whose  only  tangible 
expression  was  the  log  court-house  where  they 
recorded  the  deeds  for  their  land  or  the  mili- 
tary post  that  afforded  them  protection.  At 
Decatur,  Illinois,  one  of  these  first  court-houses 
still  stands,  and  we  are  told  that  within  its  walls 
Lincoln  often  pleaded  causes.  American  de- 
mocracy could  have  no  finer  monument  than 
this;  the  imagination  quickens  at  the  thought  of 
similar  huts  reared  by  the  axes  of  the  pioneers 
to  establish  safeguards  of  law  and  order  on 
new  soil  almost  before  they  had  fashioned  their 
habitations.  It  seemed  to  me  that  if  the  Kaiser 
had  known  the  spirit  in  which  these  august 
fields  were  tamed  and  peopled,  or  the  aspira- 
tions, the  aims  and  hopes  that  are  represented 
in  every  farmhouse  and  ranch-house  between 
the  Alleghanies  .and  the  Rockies,  he  would  not  so 
contemptuously  have  courted  our  participation 
against  him  in  his  war  for  world-domination. 

What  I  am  calling,  for  convenience,  the  in- 
termediate period  in  the  history  of  the  Missis- 
sippi valley,  began  when  the  rough  pioneering 
was  over,  and  the  sons  of  the  first  settlers  came 
into  an  inheritance  of  cleared  land.  In  the 
Ohio  valley  the  Civil  War  found  the  farmer  at 


94     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

ease;  to  the  west  and  northwest  we  must  set 
the  date  further  along.  The  conditions  of  this 
intermediate  period  may  not  be  overlooked  in 
any  scrutiny  of  the  farmer  of  these  changed 
and  changing  times.  When  the  cloud  of  the 
Civil  War  lifted  and  the  West  began  asserting 
itself  in  the  industrial  world,  the  farmer,  view- 
ing the  smoke-stacks  that  advertised  the  en- 
trance of  the  nearest  towns  and  cities  into  manu- 
facturing, became  a  man  with  a  grievance,  who 
bitterly  reflected  that  when  rumors  of  "good 
times"  reached  him  he  saw  no  perceptible  change 
in  his  own  fortunes  or  prospects,  and  in  "bad 
times"  he  felt  himself  the  victim  of  hardship 
and  injustice.  The  glory  of  pioneering  had 
passed  with  his  father  and  grandfather;  they 
had  departed,  leaving  him  without  their  in- 
centive of  urgent  necessity  or  the  exultance  of 
conquest.  There  may  have  been  some  weaken- 
ing of  the  fibre,  or  perhaps  it  was  only  a  lessening 
of  the  tension  now  that  the  Indians  had  been 
dispersed  and  the  fear  of  wild  beasts  lifted  from 
his  household. 

There  were  always,  of  course,  men  who  were 
pointed  to  as  prosperous,  who  for  one  reason 
or  another  "got  ahead"  when  others  fell  be- 
hind. They  not  only  held  their  acres  free  of 
mortgage  but  added  to  their  holdings.  These 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST    95 

men  were  very  often  spoken  of  as  "close,"  or 
tight-fisted;  in  Mr.  Brand  Whitlock's  phrase 
they  were  "not  rich,  but  they  had  money." 
And,  having  money  and  credit,  they  were  sharply 
differentiated  from  their  neighbors  who  were 
forever  borrowing  to  cover  a  shortage.  These 
men  loomed  prominently  in  their  counties; 
they  took  pride  in  augmenting  the  farms  in- 
herited from  pioneer  fathers;  they  might  sit 
in  the  State  legislature  or  even  in  the  national 
Congress.  But  for  many  years  the  farmer  was 
firmly  established  in  the  mind  of  the  rest  of  the 
world  as  an  object  of  commiseration.  He  oc- 
cupied an  anomalous  position  in  the  industrial 
economy.  He  was  a  landowner  without  en- 
joying the  dignity  of  a  capitalist;  he  performed 
the  most  arduous  tasks  without  recognition  by 
organized  labor.  He  was  shabby,  dull,  and 
uninteresting.  He  drove  to  town  over  a  bad 
road  with  a  load  of  corn,  and,  after  selling  or 
bartering  it,  negotiated  for  the  renewal  of  his 
mortgage  and  stood  on  the  street  corner,  an 
unheroic  figure,  until  it  was  time  to  drive  home. 
He  symbolized  hard  work,  hard  luck,  and  dis- 
couragement. The  saloon,  the  livery-stable, 
and  the  grocery  where  he  did  his  trading  were 
his  only  loafing-places.  The  hotel  was  inhos- 
pitable; he  spent  no  money  there  and  the  pro- 


96     THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

prietor  didn't  want  "rubes"  or  "jays"  hanging 
about.  The  farmer  and  his  wife  ate  their  mid- 
day meal  in  the  farm-wagon  or  at  a  restaurant 
on  the  "square"  where  the  frugal  patronage 
of  farm  folk  was  not  despised. 

The  type  I  am  describing  was  often  wasteful 
and  improvident.  The  fact  that  a  degree  of 
mechanical  skill  was  required  for  the  care  of 
farm-machinery  added  to  his  perplexities;  and 
this  apparatus  he  very  likely  left  out-of-doors 
all  winter  for  lack  of  initiative  to  build  a  shed 
to  house  it.  I  used  to  pass  frequently  a  farm 
where  a  series  of  reapers  in  various  stages  of 
decrepitude  decorated  the  barn-lot,  with  al- 
ways a  new  one  to  heighten  the  contrast. 

The  social  life  of  the  farmer  centred  chiefly 
in  the  church,  where  on  the  Sabbath  day  he 
met  his  neighbors  and  compared  notes  with 
them,  on  the  state  of  the  crops.  Sundays  on 
the  farm  I  recall  as  days  of  gloom  that  brought 
an  intensification  of  week-day  homesickness. 
The  road  was  dusty;  the  church  was  hot;  the 
hymns  were  dolorously  sung  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  a  wheezy  organ;  the  sermon  was  long, 
strongly  flavored  with  brimstone,  and  did 
nothing  to  lighten 

"the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world." 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST    97 

The  horses  outside  stamped  noisily  in  their 
efforts  to  shake  off  the  flies.  A  venturous  bee 
might  invade  the  sanctuary  and  arouse  hope 
in  impious  youngsters  of  an  attack  upon  the 
parson  —  a  hope  never  realized  !  The  preacher's 
appetite  alone  was  a  matter  for  humor;  I  once 
reported  a  Methodist  conference  at  which  the 
succulence  of  the  yellow-legged  chickens  in  a 
number  of  communities  that  contended  for  the 
next  convocation  was  debated  for  an  hour. 
The  height  of  the  country  boy's  ambition  was 
to  break  a  colt  and  own  a  side-bar  buggy  in 
which  to  take  a  neighbor's  daughter  for  a  drive 
on  Sunday  afternoon. 

Community  gatherings  were  rare;  men  lived 
and  died  in  the  counties  where  they  were  born, 
"having  seen  nothing,  still  unblest."  County 
and  State  fairs  offered  annual  diversion,  and 
the  more  ambitious  farmers  displayed  their 
hogs  and  cattle,  or  mammoth  ears  of  corn,  and 
reverently  placed  their  prize  ribbons  in  the 
family  Bibles  on  the  centre-tables  of  their  som- 
bre parlors.  Cheap  side-shows  and  monstrosi- 
ties, horse-races  and  balloon  ascensions  were 
provided  for  their  delectation,  as  marking  the 
ultimate  height  of  their  intellectual  interests. 
A  characteristic  "Riley  story"  was  of  a  farmer 
with  a  boil  on  the  back  of  his  neck,  who  spent 


98    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

a  day  at  the  State  fair  waiting  for  the  balloon 
ascension.  He  inquired  repeatedly:  "Has  the 
balloon  gone  up  yit?"  Of  course  when  the 
ascension  took  place  he  couldn't  lift  his  head 
to  see  the  balloon,  but,  satisfied  that  it  really 
had  "gone  up,"  he  contentedly  left  for  home. 
(It  may  be  noted  here  that  the  new  status  of 
the  farmer  is  marked  by  an  improvement  in 
the  character  of  amusements  offered  by  State- 
fair  managers.  Most  of  the  Western  States 
have  added  creditable  exhibitions  of  paintings 
to  their  attractions,  and  in  Minnesota  these 
were  last  year  the  subject  of  lectures  that  proved 
to  be  very  popular.) 

The  farmer,  in  the  years  before  he  found 
that  he  must  become  a  scientist  and  a  business 
man  to  achieve  success,  was  the  prey  of  a  great 
variety  of  sharpers.  Tumble-down  barns  bris- 
tled with  lightning-rods  that  cost  more  than 
the  structures  were  worth.  A  man  who  had 
sold  cooking-ranges  to  farmers  once  told  me  of 
the  delights  of  that  occupation.  A  carload  of 
ranges  would  be  shipped  to  a  county-seat  and 
transferred  to  wagons.  It  was  the  agent's  game 
to  arrive  at  the  home  of  a  good  "prospect" 
shortly  before  noon,  take  down  the  old,  ram- 
shackle cook-stove,  set  up  the  new  and  glitter- 
ing range,  and  assist  the  womenfolk  to  prepare 


FARMER  OF  THE   MIDDLE  WEST    99 

a  meal.  The  farmer,  coming  in  from  the  fields 
and  finding  his  wife  enchanted,  would  order  a 
range  and  sign  notes  for  payment.  These  ob- 
ligations, after  the  county  had  been  thoroughly 
exploited,  would  be  discounted  at  the  local  bank. 
In  this  way  the  farmer's  wife  got  "a  convenient 
range  she  would  never  have  thought  of  buying 
in  town,  and  her  husband  paid  an  exorbitant 
price  for  it. 

The  farmer's  wife  was,  in  this  period  to  which 
I  am  referring,  a  poor  drudge  who  appeared  at 
the  back  door  of  her  town  customers  on  Satur- 
day mornings  with  eggs  and  butter.  She  was 
copartner  with  her  husband,  but,  even  though 
she  might  have  "brought"  him  additional  acres 
at  marriage,  her  spending-money  was  limited 
to  the  income  from  butter,  eggs,  and  poultry, 
and  even  this  was  dependent  upon  the  gen- 
erosity of  the  head  of  the  house.  Her  kitchen 
was  furnished  with  only  the  crudest  house- 
wifery apparatus;  labor-saving  devices  reached 
her  slowly.  In  busy  seasons,  when  there  were 
farm-hands  to  cook  for,  she  might  borrow  a 
neighbor's  daughter  to  help  her.  Her  only 
relief  came  when  her  own  daughters  grew  old 
enough  to  assist  in  her  labors.  She  was  often 
broken  down,  a  prey  to  disease,  before  she 
reached  middle  life.  Her  loneliness,  the  dreary 


100    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

monotony  of  her  existence,  the  prevailing  hope- 
lessness of  never  "catching  up"  with  her  sewing 
and  mending,  often  drove  her  insane.  The 
farmhouse  itself  was  a  desolate  place.  There 
is  a  mustiness  I  associate  with  farmhouses  - 
the  damp  stuffiness  of  places  never  reached  by 
the  sun.  With  all  the  fresh  air  in  the  wrorld  to 
draw  from,  thousands  of  farmhouses  were  ill- 
lighted  and  ill-ventilated,  and  farm  sanitation 
was  of  the  most  primitive  order. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  the  intermediate  period 
merely  to  heighten  the  contrast  with  the  new 
era  —  an  era  that  finds  the  problem  of  farm 
regeneration  put  squarely  up  to  the  farmer. 


Ill 


The  new  era  really  began  with  the  passage 
of  the  Morrill  Act,  approved  July  2,  1862, 
though  it  is  only  within  a  decade  that  the  ef- 
fects of  this  law  upon  the  efficiency  and  the 
character  of  the  farmer  have  been  markedly 
evident.  The  Morrill  Act  not  only  made  the 
first  provision  for  wide-spread  education  in 
agriculture  but  lighted  the  way  for  subsequent 
legislation  that  resulted  in  the  elevation  of 
the  Department  of  Agriculture  to  a  cabinet 
bureau,  the  system  of  agriculture  experiment- 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     101 

stations,  the  co-operation  of  federal  and  State 
bureaus  for  the  diffusion  of  scientific  knowledge 
pertaining  to  farming  and  the  breeding  and 
care  of  live-stock,  and  the  recent  introduction  of 
vocational  training  into  country  schools. 

It  was  fitting  that  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  had 
known  the  hardest  farm  labor,  should  have 
signed  a  measure  of  so  great  importance,  that 
opened  new  possibilities  to  the  American  farmer. 
The  agricultural  colleges  established  under  his 
Act  are  impressive  monuments  to  Senator  Mor- 
rill's  far-sightedness.  When  the  first  land-grant 
colleges  were  opened  there  was  little  upon  wrhich 
to  build  courses  of  instruction.  Farming  was 
not  recognized  as  a  science  but  was  a  form  of 
hard  labor  based  on  tradition  and  varied  only 
by  reckless  experiments  that  usually  resulted  in 
failure.  The  first  students  of  the  agricultural 
schools,  drawn  largely  from  the  farm,  were  dis- 
couraged by  the  elementary  character  of  the 
courses.  Instruction  in  ploughing,  to  young 
men  who  had  learned  to  turn  a  straight  furrow 
as  soon  as  they  could  tiptoe  up  to  the  plough- 
handles,  was  not  calculated  to  inspire  respect 
for  "book  farming"  either  in  students  or  their 
doubting  parents. 

The  farmer  and  his  household  have  found 
themselves  in  recent  years  the  object  of  em- 


102    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

barrassing  attentions  not  only  from  Washing- 
ton, the  land-grant  colleges,  and  the  experiment- 
stations,  but  countless  private  agencies  have 
"discovered"  the  farmer  and  addressed  them- 
selves determinedly  to  the  amelioration  of  his 
hardships.  The  social  surveyor,  having  analyzed 
the  city  slum  to  his  satisfaction,  springs  from 
his  automobile  at  the  farmhouse  door  and 
asks  questions  of  the  bewildered  occupants  that 
rouse  the  direst  apprehensions.  Sanitarians 
invade  the  premises  and  recommend  the  most 
startling  changes  and  improvements.  Once  it 
was  possible  for  typhoid  or  diphtheria  to  ravage 
a  household  without  any  interference  from  the 
outside  world;  now  a  health  officer  is  speedily 
on  the  premises  to  investigate  the  old  oaken 
bucket,  the  iron-bound  bucket,  that  hangs  in 
the  well,  and  he  very  likely  ties  and  seals  the 
well-sweep  and  bids  the  farmer  bore  a  new  well, 
in  a  spot  kindly  chosen  for  him,  where  the  barn- 
lot  will  not  pollute  his  drinking-water.  The 
questionnaire,  dear  to  the  academic  investi- 
gator, is  constantly  in  circulation.  Women's 
clubs  and  federations  thereof  ponder  the  plight 
of  the  farmer's  wife  and  are  eager  to  hitch  her 
wagon  to  a  star.  Home-mission  societies, 
alarmed  by  reports  of  the  decay  of  the  country 
church,  have  instituted  surveys  to  determine 


FARMER  OF  THE   MIDDLE   WEST     103 

the  truth  of  this  matter.  The  consolidation  of 
schools,  the  introduction  of  comfortable  omni- 
buses to  carry  children  to  and  from  home,  the 
multiplication  of  country  high  schools,  with  a 
radical  revision  of  the  curriculum,  the  building 
of  two-story  schoolhouses  in  place  of  the  old  one- 
room  affair  in  which  all  branches  were  taught  at 
once,  and  the  use  of  the  schoolhouse  as  a  com- 
munity centre  —  these  changes  have  dealt  a 
blow  to  the  long-established  ideal  of  the  red- 
mittened  country  child,  wading  breast-high 
through  snow  to  acquaint  himself  with  the  three 
R's  and,  thus  fortified,  enter  into  the  full  enjoy- 
ment of  American  democracy.  Just  how  Jeffer- 
son would  look  upon  these  changes  and  this  be- 
nignant paternalism  I  do  not  know,  nor  does  it 
matter  now  that  American  farm  products  are 
reckoned  in  billions  and  we  are  told  that  the 
amount  must  be  increased  or  the  world  will 
starve. 

The  farmer's  mail,  once  restricted  to  an  oc- 
casional letter,  began  to  be  augmented  by  other 
remembrances  from  Washington  than  the  holly- 
hock-seed his  congressman  occasionally  con- 
ferred upon  the  farmer's  wife.  Pamphlets  in 
great  numbers  poured  in  upon  him,  filled  with 
warnings  and  friendly  counsel.  The  soil  he 
had  sown  and  reaped  for  years,  in  the  full  con- 


104    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

fidence  that  he  knew  all  its  weaknesses  and 
possibilities,  he  found  to  be  something  very 
different  and  called  by  strange  names.  His 
lifelong  submission  to  destructive  worms  and 
hoppers  was,  he  learned,  unnecessary  if  not 
criminal;  there  were  ways  of  eliminating  these 
enemies,  and  he  shyly  discussed  the  subject 
with  his  neighbors. 

In  speaking  of  the  farmer's  shyness  I  have 
stumbled  into  the  field  of  psychology,  whose 
pitfalls  are  many.  The  psychologists  have  as 
yet  played  their  search-light  upon  the  farm 
guardedly  or  from  the  sociologist's  camp.  I 
here  condense  a  few  impressions  merely  that 
the  trained  specialist  may  hasten  to  convict  me 
of  error.  The  farmer  of  the  Middle  West  —  the 
typical  farmer  with  approximately  a  quarter- 
section  of  land  —  is  notably  sensitive,  timid, 
only  mildly  curious,  cautious,  and  enormously 
suspicious.  ("The  farmer,"  a  Kansas  friend 
whispers,  "doesn't  vote  his  opinions;  he  votes 
his  suspicions !")  In  spite  of  the  stuffing  of  his 
rural-route  box  with  instructive  literature  de- 
signed to  increase  the  productiveness  of  his 
acres  and  lighten  his  own  toil,  he  met  the  first 
overtures  of  the  "book-1'arnin'  '  specialist 
warily,  and  often  with  open  hostility.  The 
reluctant  earth  has  communicated  to  the  farmer, 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     105 

perhaps  in  all  times  and  in  all  lands,  something 
of  its  own  stubbornness.  He  does  not  like  to 
be  driven;  he  is  restive  under  criticism.  The 
county  agent  of  the  extension  bureau  who  seeks 
him  out  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world, 
to  counsel  him  in  his  perplexities,  must  ap- 
proach him  diplomatically.  I  find  in  the  re- 
port of  a  State  director  of  agricultural  exten- 
sion a  discreet  statement  that  "the  forces  of 
this  department  are  organized,  not  for  purposes 
of  dictation  in  agricultural  matters  but  for 
service  and  assistance  in  working  out  problems 
pertaining  to  the  farm  and  the  community." 
The  farmer,  unaffected  as  he  is  by  crowd  psy- 
chology, is  not  easily  disturbed  by  the  great 
movements  and  tremendous  crises  that  rouse 
the  urban  citizen.  He  reads  his  newspaper 
perhaps  more  thoroughly  than  the  city  man, 
at  least  in  the  winter  season  when  the  distrac- 
tions of  the  city  are  greatest  and  farm  duties 
are  the  least  exacting.  Surrounded  by  the 
peace  of  the  fields,  he  is  not  swayed  by  mighty 
events,  as  men  are  who  scan  the  day's  news  on 
trains  and  trolleys  and  catch  the  hurried  com- 
ments of  their  fellow  citizens  as  they  plunge 
through  jostling  throngs.  Professor  C.  J.  Gal- 
pin,  of  Wisconsin  University,  aptly  observes 
that,  while  the  farmer  trades  in  a  village,  he 


106    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

shares  the  invisible  government  of  a  township, 
which  "scatters  and  mystifies"  his  community 
sense. 

It  was  a  matter  of  serious  complaint  that 
farmers  responded  very  slowly  in  the  first 
Liberty  Loan  campaigns.  At  the  second  call 
vigorous  attempts  were  made  through  the  corn 
belt  to  rouse  the  farmer,  who  had  profited  so 
enormously  by  the  war's  augmentation  of  prices. 
In  many  cases  country  banks  took  the  minimum 
allotment  of  their  communities  and  then  sent 
for  the  farmers  to  come  in  and  subscribe.  The 
Third  Loan,  however,  was  met  in  a  much  better 
spirit.  The  farmer  is  unused  to  the  methods 
by  which  money-raising  "drives"  are  conducted 
and  he  resents  being  told  that  he  must  do  this, 
that,  or  the  other  thing.  Townfolk  are  beset 
constantly  by  demands  for  money  for  innumer- 
able causes;  there  is  always  a  church,  a  hos- 
pital, a  social-service  house,  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  build- 
ing, or  some  home  or  refuge  for  which  a  special 
appeal  is  being  made.  There  is  a  distinct  psy- 
chology of  generosity  based  largely  on  the  in- 
spiration of  thoroughly  organized  effort,  where 
teams  set  forth  with  a  definite  quota  to  "raise" 
before  a  fixed  hour,  but  the  farmer  was  long 
immune  from  these  influences. 

In  marked  contrast  with  the  small  farmer, 


who  wrests  a  scant  livelihood  from  the  soil,  is 
his  neighbor  who  boasts  a  section  or  a  thousand 
acres,  who  is  able  to  utilize  the  newest  ma- 
chinery and  to  avail  himself  of  the  latest  dis- 
closures of  the  laboratories,  to  increase  his 
profits.  One  visits  these  large  farms  with  ad- 
miration for  the  fruitful  land,  the  perfect  equip- 
ment, the  efficient  method,  and  the  alert,  wide- 
awake owner.  He  lives  in  a  comfortable  house, 
often  electric-lighted  and  "plumbed,"  visits  the 
cities,  attends  farm,  conferences,  and  is  keenly 
alive  to  the  trend  of  public  affairs.  If  the  frost 
nips  his  corn  he  is  aware  of  every  means  by 
which  "soft"  corn  may  be  handled  to  the  best 
advantage.  He  knows  how  many  cattle  and 
hogs  his  own  acres  will  feed,  and  is  ready  with 
cash  to  buy  his  neighbors'  corn  and  feed  it  to 
stock  he  buys  at  just  the  right  turn  of  the 
market.  It  is  possible  for  a  man  to  support 
himself  and  a  family  on  eighty  acres;  I  have 
talked  with  men  who  have  done  this;  but  they 
"just  about  get  by."  The  owner  of  a  big  farm, 
whose  modern  house  and  rich  demesne  are  ad- 
mired by  the  traveller,  is  a  valued  customer  of 
a  town  or  city  banker;  the  important  men  of 
his  State  cultivate  his  acquaintance,  with  re- 
sulting benefits  in  a  broader  outlook  than  his 
less-favored  neighbors  enjoy.  Farmers  of  this 


108    THE   VALLEY  OF   DEMOCRACY 

class  are  themselves  usually  money-lenders  or 
shareholders  in  country  banks,  and  they  watch 
the  trend  of  affairs  from  the  view-point  of  the 
urban  business  man.  They  live  closer  to  the 
world's  currents  and  are  more  accessible  and 
responsive  to  appeals  of  every  sort  than  their 
less-favored  brethren. 

But  it  is  the  small  farmer,  the  man  with  the 
quarter-section  or  less,  who  is  the  special  focus 
of  the  search-light  of  educator,  scientist,  and 
sociologist.  During  what  I  have  called  the  in- 
termediate period  —  the  winter  of  the  farmer's 
discontent  —  the  politicians  did  not  wholly  ig- 
nore him.  The  demagogue  went  forth  in  every 
campaign  with  special  appeals  to  the  honest 
husbandman,  with  the  unhappy  effect  of  driv- 
ing the  farmer  more  closely  into  himself  and 
strengthening  his  class  sense.  For  the  reason 
that  the  security  of  a  democracy  rests  upon 
the  effacement  to  the  vanishing-point  of  class 
feeling,  and  the  establishment  of  a  solidarity 
of  interests  based  upon  a  common  aim  and 
aspiration,  the  effort  making  to  dignify  farm- 
ing as  a  calling  and  quicken  the  social  instincts 
of  the  farmer's  household  are  matters  of  na- 
tional importance. 

It  may  be  said  that  in  no  other  business  is 
there  a  mechanism  so  thoroughly  organized 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     109 

for  guarding  the  investor  from  errors  of  omis- 
sion or  commission.  I  am  aware  of  no  "ser- 
vice" in  any  other  field  of  endeavor  so  excel- 
lent as  that  of  the  agricultural  colleges  and  their 
auxiliary  experiment  and  extension  branches, 
and  it  is  a  pleasure  to  testify  to  the  ease  with 
which  information  touching  the  farm  in  all 
its  departments  may  be  collected.  Only  the 
obtuse  may  fail  these  days  to  profit  by  the 
newest  ideas  in  soil-conservation,  plant-nutri- 
tion, animal-husbandry,  and  a  thousand  other 
subjects  of  vital  importance  to  the  farmer.  To 
test  the  "service"  I  wrote  to  the  Department 
of  Agriculture  for  information  touching  a  number 
of  subjects  in  which  my  ignorance  was  profound. 
The  return  mail  brought  an  astonishing  array 
of  documents  covering  all  my  inquiries  and 
other  literature  which  my  nai've  questions  had 
suggested  to  the  Department  as  likely  to  prove 
illuminative.  As  the  extent  of  the  govern- 
ment's aid  to  the  farmer  and  stockman  is  known 
only  vaguely  to  most  laymen,  I  shall  set  down 
the  titles  of  some  of  these  publications: 

"Management  of  Sandy  Land  Farms  in  Northern  In- 
diana and  Southern  Michigan." 

"The  Feeding  of  Grain  Sorghums  to  Live  Stock." 

"Prevention  of  Losses  of  Live  Stock  from  Plant  Poi- 
soning." 

"The  Feeding  of  Dairy  Cows." 


110    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

"An  Economic  Study  of  the  Farm  Tractor  in  the  Corn 
Belt." 

'Waste  Land  and  Wasted  Land  on  Farms." 

'How  to  Grow  an  Acre  of  Corn." 

'How  to  Select  a  Sound  Horse." 

'The  Chalcis  Fly  in  Alfalfa  Seed." 

'Homemade  Fireless  Cookers  and  Their  Use." 

'A  Method  of  Analyzing  the  Farm  Business." 

'The  Striped  Peach  Worm." 

'The  Sheep-Killing  Dog." 

'Food  Habits  of  the  Swallows,  a  Family  of  Valuable 
Native  Birds." 

As  most  of  these  bulletins  may  be  had  free 
and  for  others  only  a  nominal  price  of  five  or 
ten  cents  is  charged,  it  is  possible  to  accumulate 
an  extensive  library  with  a  very  small  expen- 
diture. Soil-fertilization  alone  is  the  subject 
of  an  enormous  literature;  the  field  investigator 
and  the  laboratory  expert  have  subjected  the 
earth  in  every  part  of  America  to  intensive 
study  and  their  reports  are  presented  clearly 
and  with  a  minimum  use  of  technical  terms. 
Many  manufacturers  of  implements  or  ma- 
terials used  on  farms  publish  and  distribute 
books  of  real  dignity  in  the  advertisement  of 
their  wares.  I  have  before  me  a  handsome 
volume,  elaborately  illustrated,  put  forth  by 
a  Wisconsin  concern,  describing  the  proper 
method  of  constructing  and  equipping  a  dairy- 
barn.  To  peruse  this  work  is  to  be  convinced 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     111 

that  the  manger  so  alluringly  offered  really 
assures  the  greatest  economy  of  feeding,  and 
the  kine  are  so  effectively  photographed,  so 
clean,  and  so  contented  that  one  is  impelled 
to  an  immediate  investment  in  a  herd  merely 
for  the  joy  of  housing  it  in  the  attractive  manner 
recommended  by  the  sagacious  advertiser. 

Agricultural  schools  and  State  extension  bu- 
reaus manifest  the  greatest  eagerness  to  serve 
the  earnest  seeker  for  enlightenment.  "The 
Service  of  YOUR  College  Brought  as  Near  as 
Your  Mail-Box,"  is  the  slogan  of  the  Kansas 
State  Agricultural  College.  Once  upon  a  time 
I  sought  the  answer  to  a  problem  in  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics  and  learned  that  the  only  Amer- 
ican who  could  speak  authoritatively  on  that 
particular  point  was  somewhere  on  the  Nile 
with  an  exploration  party.  In  the  field  of  agri- 
culture there  is  no  such  paucity  of  scholarship. 
The  very  stupidity  of  a  question  seems  to  awaken 
pity  in  the  intelligent,  accommodating  persons 
who  are  laboring  in  the  farmer's  behalf.  Au- 
gustine Birrell  remarks  that  in  the  days  of  the 
tractarian  movement  pamphlets  were  served 
upon  the  innocent  bystander  like  sheriffs'  proc- 
esses. In  like  manner  one  who  manifests  only 
the  tamest  curiosity  touching  agriculture  in 
any  of  its  phases  will  find  literature  pouring  in 


upon  him;  and  he  is  distressed  to  find  that  it 
is  all  so  charmingly  presented  that  he  is  be- 
guiled into  reading  it ! 

The  charge  that  the  agricultural  school  is 
educating  students  away  from  the  farm  is  not 
substantiated  by  reports  from  representative 
institutions  of  this  character.  The  dean  of 
the  College  of  Agriculture  of  the  University  of 
Illinois,  Dr.  Eugene  Davenport,  has  prepared 
a  statement  illustrative  of  the  sources  from 
which  the  students  of  that  institution  are  de- 
rived. Every  county  except  two  is  represented 
in  the  agricultural  department  in  a  registration 
of  1,200  students,  and,  of  710  questioned,  242 
are  from  farms;  40  from  towns  under  1,000; 
87  from  towns  of  1,000  to  1,500;  262  from  towns 
of  5,000  and  up;  and  79  from  Chicago.  Since 
1900  nearly  1,000  students  have  completed  the 
agricultural  course  in  this  institution,  and  of  this 
number  69  per  cent  are  actually  living  on  farms 
and  engaged  in  farming;  17  per  cent  are  teach- 
ing agriculture,  or  are  engaged  in  extension  work; 
10  per  cent  entered  callings  related  to  farming, 
such  as  veterinary  surgery,  landscape-garden- 
ing, creamery -management,  etc. ;  less  than  4  per 
cent  are  in  occupations  not  allied  with  agricul- 
ture. It  should  be  explained  that  the  Illinois 
school  had  only  a  nominal  existence  until  seven- 
teen years  ago.  The  number  of  students  has 


steadily  increased  from  7  registrations  in  1890 
to  1,201  in  1916-17.  At  the  Ohio  College  of 
Agriculture  half  the  freshman  classes  of  the  last 
three  years  came  from  the  cities,  though  this 
includes  students  in  landscape  architecture  and 
horticulture.  In  Iowa  State  College  the  reports 
of  three  years  show  that  54.5  per  cent  of  the 
freshmen  were  sons  of  farmers,  and  of  the  gradu- 
ates of  a  seven-year  period  (1907-1914)  34.8  are 
now  engaged  in  farming. 

The  opportunities  open  to  the  graduates  of 
these  colleges  have  been  greatly  multiplied  by 
the  demand  for  teachers  in  vocational  schools, 
and  the  employment  of  county  agents  who 
must  be  graduates  of  a  school  of  agriculture  or 
have  had  the  equivalent  in  practical  farm  ex- 
perience. The  influence  of  the  educated  farmer 
upon  his  neighbors  is  very  marked.  They  may 
view  his  methods  with  distrust,  but  when  he 
rolls  up  a  yield  of  corn  that  sets  a  new  record 
for  fields  with  which  they  are  familiar  they 
cannot  ignore  the  fact  that,  after  all,  there  may 
be  something  in  the  idea  of  school-taught  farm- 
ing. By  the  time  a  farm  boy  enters  college  he 
is  sufficiently  schooled  in  his  father's  methods, 
and  well  enough  acquainted  with  the  home 
acres,  to  appreciate  fully  the  value  of  the  in- 
struction the  college  offers  him. 

The    only    difference    between    agricultural 


114    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

colleges  and  other  technical  schools  is  that  to 
an  unscientific  observer  the  courses  in  agronomy 
and  its  co-ordinate  branches  deal  with  vital 
matters  that  are  more  interesting  and  appeal- 
ing than  those  in,  let  us  say,  mechanical  en- 
gineering. If  there  is  something  that  stirs  the 
imagination  in  the  thought  that  two  blades  of 
grass  may  be  made  to  grow  where  only  one 
had  grown  before,  how  much  more  satisfying 
is  the  assurance  that  an  acre  of  soil,  properly 
fertilized  and  thoroughly  tended,  may  double 
its  yield  of  corn;  that  there  is  a  choice  well 
worth  the  knowing  between  breeds  of  beef  or 
dairy  cattle,  and  that  there  is  a  demonstrable 
difference  in  the  energy  of  foods  that  may  be 
converted  into  pork,  particularly  when  there  is 
a  shortage  and  the  government,  to  stimulate 
hog  production,  fixes  a  minimum  price  (Novem- 
ber, 1917)  of  $15.50  per  hundredweight  in  the 
Chicago  market;  and  even  so  stabilized  the 
price  is  close  upon  $20  in  July,  1918. 

The  equipment  of  these  institutions  includes, 
with  the  essential  laboratories,  farms  under  cul- 
tivation, horses,  cattle,  sheep,  and  swine  of  all 
the  representative  breeds.  Last  fall  I  spent 
two  clays  in  the  agricultural  school  of  a  typical 
land-grant  college  of  the  corn  belt  (Purdue  Uni- 
versity), and  found  the  experience  wholly  edi- 


Students  of  agriculture  in  the  pageant  that  celebrated  the  fortieth 
anniversary  of  the  founding  of  Ohio  State  University. 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     115 

fying.  The  value  of  this  school  to  the  State  of 
Indiana  is  incalculable.  Here  the  co-ordinate 
extension  service  under  Professor  G.  I.  Christie 
is  thoroughly  systematized,  and  reaches  every 
acre  of  land  in  the  commonwealth.  "Send  for 
Christie"  has  become  a  watchword  among 
Indiana  farmers  in  hours  of  doubt  or  peril. 
Christie  can  diagnose  an  individual  farmer's 
troubles  in  the  midst  of  a  stubborn  field,  and 
fully  satisfy  the  landowner  as  to  the  merit  of 
the  prescribed  remedy;  or  he  can  interest  a 
fashionable  city  audience  in  farm  problems. 
He  was  summoned  to  Washington  a  year  ago 
to  supervise  farm-labor  activities,  and  is  a  mem- 
ber of  the  recently  organized  war  policies  board. 
The  extension  service  in  all  the  corn  and  wheat 
States  is  excellent;  it  must  be  in  capable  hands, 
for  the  farmer  at  once  becomes  suspicious  if  the 
State  agent  doesn't  show  immediately  that  he 
knows  his  business. 

The  students  at  Purdue  struck  me  as  more 
attentive  and  alert  than  those  I  have  observed 
from  time  to  time  in  literature  classes  of  schools 
that  stick  to  the  humanities.  In  an  entomol- 
ogy class,  where  I  noted  the  presence  of  one 
young  woman,  attention  was  riveted  upon 
a  certain  malevolent  grasshopper,  the  foe  of 
vegetation  and  in  these  years  of  anxious  con- 


116    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

servation  an  enemy  of  civilization.  That  a 
young  woman  should  elect  a  full  course  in 
agronomy  and  allied  branches  seemed  to  me 
highly  interesting,  and,  to  learn  her  habitat  in 
the  most  delicate  manner  possible,  I  asked  for 
a  census  of  the  class,  to  determine  how  many 
students  were  of  farm  origin.  The  young  lady 
so  deeply  absorbed  in  the  grasshopper  was,  I 
found,  a  city  girl.  Women,  it  should  be  noted, 
are  often  very  successful  farmers  and  stock-breed- 
ers. They  may  be  seen  at  all  representative 
cattle-shows  inspecting  the  exhibits  with  sophis- 
tication and  pencilling  notes  in  the  catalogues. 

To  sit  in  the  pavilion  of  one  of  these  colleges 
and  hear  a  lecture  on  the  judging  of  cattle  is 
to  be  persuaded  that  much  philosophy  goes 
into  the  production  of  a  tender,  juicy  beefsteak 
or  a  sound,  productive  milch  cow.  In  a  class 
that  I  visited  a  Polled  Angus  steer  and  a  short- 
horn were  on  exhibition;  the  instructor  might 
have  been  a  sculptor,  conducting  a  class  in 
modelling,  from  the  nice  points  of  "line,"  the 
distribution  of  muscle  and  fat,  that  he  dilated 
upon.  He  invited  questions,  which  led  to  a 
discussion  in  which  the  whole  class  participated. 
At  the  conclusion  of  this  lecture  a  drove  of 
swine  was  driven  in  that  a  number  of  young 
gentlemen  might  practise  the  fine  art  of  "judg- 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     117 

ing"  this  species  against  an  approaching  com- 
petitive meeting  with  a  class  from  another 
school.  In  these  days  of  multiplying  farm-im- 
plements and  tractors,  the  farmer  is  driven  per- 
force to  know  something  of  mechanics.  Time  is 
precious  and  the  breaking  down  of  a  harvester 
may  be  calamitous  if  the  owner  must  send  to 
town  for  some  one  to  repair  it.  These  matters 
are  cared  for  in  the  farm-mechanics  laboratories 
where  instruction  is  offered  in  the  care,  adjust- 
ment, and  repair  of  all  kinds  of  farm-machinery. 
While  in  the  summer  of  1917  only  40,000  trac- 
tors were  in  use  on  American  farms,  it  is  esti- 
mated that  by  the  end  of  the  current  year  the 
number  will  have  increased  to  200,000,  greatly 
minimizing  the  shortage  in  men  and  horses. 
The  substitution  of  gasolene  for  horse-power  is 
only  one  of  the  many  changes  in  farm  methods 
attributable  to  the  imperative  demand  for 
increased  production  of  foodstuffs.  Whitman 
may  have  foreseen  the  coming  of  the  tractor 
when  he  wrote: 

"  Well-pleased  America,  thou  beholdest, 
Over  the  fields  of  the  West  those  crawling  monsters; 
The  human-divine  inventions,  the  labor-saving  imple- 
ments"; 

for  "crawling  monster"  happily  describes  the 
tractor. 


118    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

The  anxiety  to  serve,  to  accommodate  the 
instruction  to  special  needs,  is  illustrated  in 
the  length  of  courses  offered,  which  include  a 
week's  intensive  course  in  midwinter  designed 
for  farmers,  two-year  and  four-year  courses, 
and  postgraduate  work.  Men  well  advanced 
in  years  attend  the  midwinter  sessions,  eager 
to  improve  their  methods  in  a  business  they 
have  followed  all  their  lives.  They  often  bring 
their  wives  with  them,  to  attend  classes  in  dairy- 
ing, poultry-raising,  or  home  economics.  It  is 
significant  of  the  new  movement  in  farming 
that  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  an  insti- 
tution whose  services  to  American  agriculture 
are  inestimable,  there  is  a  course  in  agricultural 
journalism,  "intended,"  the  catalogue  recites, 
"to  be  of  special  service  to  students  who  will 
engage  in  farming  or  who  expect  to  be  employed 
in  station  work  or  in  some  form  of  demonstra- 
tion or  extension  service  and  who  therefore  may 
have  occasion  to  write  for  publication  and  cer- 
tainly will  have  farm  produce  and  products 
to  sell.  To  these  ends  the  work  is  very  largely 
confined  to  studies  in  agricultural  writing." 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     119 

IV 

The  easing  of  the  farmer's  burdens,  through 
the  development  of  labor-saving  machinery, 
and  the  convenience  of  telephones,  trolley-lines, 
and  the  cheap  automobile  that  have  vastly 
improved  his  social  prospects,  has  not  over- 
come a  growing  prejudice  against  close  kinship 
with  the  soil.  We  have  still  to  deal  with  the 
loneliness  and  the  social  barrenness  that  have 
driven  thousands  of  the  children  of  farms  to 
the  cities.  The  son  of  a  small  farmer  may  make 
a  brilliant  record  in  an  agricultural  college, 
achieve  the  distinction  of  admission  to  the 
national  honorary  agricultural  fraternity  (the 
Alpha  Zeta,  the  little  brother  of  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa),  and  still  find  the  old  home  crippling 
and  stifling  to  his  awakened  social  sense. 

There  is  general  agreement  among  the  au- 
thorities that  one  of  the  chief  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  improvement  is  the  lack  of  leader- 
ship in  farm  communities.  The  farmer  is  not 
easily  aroused,  and  he  is  disposed  to  resent  as 
an  unwarranted  infringement  upon  his  con- 
stitutional rights  the  attempts  of  outsiders  to 
meddle  with  his  domestic  affairs.  He  has  found 
that  it  is  profitable  to  attend  institutes,  consult 
county  agents,  and  peruse  the  literature  dis- 


120    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

tributed  from  extension  centres,  but  the  in- 
vasion of  his  house  is  a  very  different  matter. 
Is  he  not  the  lord  of  his  acres,  an  independent, 
self-respecting  citizen,  asking  no  favors  of  so- 
ciety? Does  he  not  ponder  well  his  civic  duty 
and  plot  the  destruction  of  the  accursed  middle- 
man, his  arch-enemy?  The  benevolently  in- 
clined who  seek  him  out  to  persuade  him  of 
the  error  of  his  ways  in  any  particular  are  often 
received  with  scant  courtesy.  He  must  be 
"shown,"  not  merely  "told."  The  agencies 
now  so  diligently  at  work  to  improve  the  farmer's 
social  status  understand  this  and  the  methods 
employed  are  wisely  tempered  in  the  light  of 
abundant  knowledge  of  just  how  much  crowd- 
ing the  farmer  will  stand. 

Nothing  is  so  essential  to  his  success  as  the 
health  of  his  household;  yet  inquiries,  more 
particularly  in  the  older  States  of  the  Missis- 
sippi valley,  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
is  a  dismaying  amount  of  chronic  invalidism  on 
farms.  A  physician  who  is  very  familiar  with 
farm  life  declares  that  "all  farmers  have  stomach 
trouble,"  and  this  obvious  exaggeration  is  rather 
supported  by  Dr.  John  N.  Hurty,  secretary  of 
the  Indiana  State  Board  of  Health,  who  says 
that  he  finds  in  his  visits  to  farmhouses  that 
the  cupboards  are  filled  with  nostrums  war- 


A  feeding-plant  at  "Whitehall,"  the  farm  of  Edwin  S.  Kelly,  near 
Springfield,  Ohio. 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST 

ranted  to  relieve  the  agonies  of  poor  digestion. 
Dr.  Hurty,  who  has  probably  saved  more  lives 
and  caused  more  indignation  in  his  twenty 
years  of  public  service  than  any  other  Hoosier, 
has  made  a  sanitary  survey  of  four  widely  sep- 
arated Indiana  counties.  In  Blackford  County, 
where  1,374  properties  were  inspected,  only  15 
per  cent  of  the  farm-houses  were  found  to  be 
sanitary.  Site,  ventilation,  water-supply,  the 
condition  of  the  house,  and  the  health  of  its 
inmates  entered  into  the  scoring.  In  Ohio 
County,  where  441  homes  were  visited,  86  per 
cent  were  found  to  be  insanitary.  The  tuber- 
culosis rate  for  this  county  was  found  to  be  25 
per  cent  higher  than  that  of  the  State.  In 
Scott  County  97.6  per  cent  of  the  farms  were 
pronounced  insanitary,  and  here  the  tuberculo- 
sis rate  is  48.3  per  cent  higher  than  that  of  the 
State.  In  Union  County,  where  only  2.3  per 
cent  of  the  farms  were  found  to  be  sanitary,  the 
average  score  did  not  rise  above  45  per  cent  on 
site,  ventilation,  and  health.  Here  the  tuber- 
culosis death-rate  was  176.3  in  100,000,  against 
the  State  rate  of  157.  In  all  these  counties  the 
school  population  showed  a  decrease. 

It  should  be  said  that  in  the  communities 
mentioned,  old  ones  as  history  runs  in  this 
region,  many  homes  stand  practically  unaltered 


122    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

after  fifty  or  seventy-five  years  of  continuous 
occupancy.  Thousands  of  farmers  who  would 
think  it  a  shameless  extravagance  to  install  a 
bathtub  boast  an  automobile.  A  survey  by 
Professor  George  H.  von  Tungeln,  of  Iowa 
College,  of  227  farms  in  two  townships  of 
northern  Iowa,  disclosed  62  bathtubs,  98 
pianos,  and  124  automobiles.  The  number  of 
bathtubs  reported  by  the  farmers  of  Ohio  is 
so  small  that  I  shrink  from  stating  it. 

Here,  again,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  farmer 
is  not  allowed  to  dwell  in  slothful  indifference 
to  the  perils  of  uncleanliness.  On  the  heels  of 
the  sanitarian  and  the  sociologist  come  the 
field  agents  of  the  home-economics  depart- 
ments of  the  meddlesome  land-grant  colleges, 
bent  upon  showing  him  a  better  way  of  life. 
I  was  pondering  the  plight  of  the  bathless  farm- 
house when  a  document  reached  me  showing 
how  a  farmhouse  may  enjoy  running  water, 
bathroom,  gas,  furnace,  and  two  fireplaces  for 
an  expenditure  of  $723.97.  One  concrete  story 
is  better  than  many  treatises,  and  I  cheerfully 
cite,  as  my  authority,  "Modernizing  an  Old 
Farm  House,"  by  Mrs.  F.  F.  Showers,  included 
among  the  publications  of  the  Wisconsin  Col- 
lege of  Agriculture.  The  home-economics  de- 
partments do  not  wait  for  the  daughters  of 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE   WEST     123 

the  farm  to  come  to  them,  but  seek  them  out 
with  the  glad  tidings  that  greater  ease  and  com- 
fort are  within  their  reach  if  only  their  fathers 
can  be  made  to  see  the  light.  In  many  States 
the  extension  agents  organize  companies  of 
countrywomen  and  carry  them  junketing  to 
modern  farmhouses. 

Turning  to  Nebraska,  whose  rolling  corn- 
fields are  among  the  noblest  to  be  encountered 
anywhere,  home-demonstration  agents  range 
the  commonwealth  organizing  clubs,  which  are 
federated  where  possible  to  widen  social  con- 
tacts, better-babies  conferences,  and  child-wel- 
fare exhibits.  The  Community  Welfare  As- 
sembly, as  conducted  in  Kansas,  has  the  merit 
of  offering  a  varied  programme  —  lectures  on 
agriculture  and  home  economics,  civics,  health, 
and  rural  education  by  specialists,  moving  pic- 
tures, community  music,  and  folk  games  and 
stories  for  the  children.  In  Wisconsin  the  rural- 
club  movement  reaches  every  part  of  the  State, 
and  a  State  law  grants  the  use  of  schoolhouses 
for  community  gatherings.  Seymour,  Indiana, 
boasts  a  Farmer's  Club,  the  gift  of  a  citizen, 
with  a  comfortably  appointed  house,  where 
farmers  and  their  families  may  take  their  ease 
when  in  town. 

The   organization   of    boys'   and   girls'   clubs 


124    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

among  farm  youth  is  a  feature  of  the  vocational- 
training  service  offered  under  the  Smith-Lever 
Act  of  1914,  and  already  the  reports  of  its  prog- 
ress are  highly  interesting.  These  organiza- 
tions make  possible  the  immediate  application 
of  the  instruction  in  agriculture  and  home  eco- 
nomics received  in  the  schools.  In  Indiana 
more  than  25,000  boys  and  girls  were  enlisted 
last  year  in  such  club  projects  as  the  cultivation 
of  corn,  potatoes,  and  garden  vegetables,  can- 
ning, sewing,  and  home-craft,  and  the  net  profit 
from  these  sources  was  $105,100.  In  my  prowl- 
ings  nothing  has  delighted  me  more  than  the 
discovery  of  the  Pig  Club.  This  is  one  of  Uncle 
Sam's  many  schemes  for  developing  the  initia- 
tive and  stimulating  the  ambition  of  farm  chil- 
dren. It  might  occur  to  the  city  boy,  whose  ac- 
quaintance with  pork  is  limited  to  his  breakfast 
bacon,  that  the  feeding  of  a  pig  is  not  a  matter 
worthy  of  the  consideration  of  youth  of  intel- 
ligence and  aspiration.  Uncle  Sam,  however, 
holds  the  contrary  opinion.  From  a  desk  in 
the  Department  of  Agriculture  he  has  thrown 
a  rosy  glamour  about  the  lowly  pig.  Country 
bankers,  properly  approached  and  satisfied  of 
the  good  character  and  honorable  intentions 
of  applicants,  will  advance  money  to  farm  boys 
to  launch  them  upon  pig-feeding  careers.  My 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     125 

heart  warms  to  Douglas  Byrne,  of  Harrison 
County,  Indiana,  who,  under  the  guidance  of  a 
club  supervisor,  fed  17  hogs  with  a  profit  of 
$99.30.  Another  young  Hoosier,  Elmer  Pearce, 
of  Vanderburgh  County,  fed  2  pigs  that  made  a 
daily  gain  of  1.38  pounds  for  four  months,  and 
sold  them  at  a  profit  of  $12.36.  We  learn  from 
the  official  report  that  this  young  man's  father 
warned  him  that  the  hogs  he  exercised  his  tal- 
ents upon  would  make  no  such  gains  as  were 
achieved.  Instead  of  spanking  the  lad  for  his 
perverseness,  as  would  have  been  the  case  in 
the  olden  golden  days,  this  father  made  him  the 
ruler  over  30  swine.  There  are  calf  and  pig 
clubs  for  girls,  and  a  record  has  been  set  for 
Indiana  by  twelve-year-old  Pauline  Hadley,  of 
Mooresville,  who  cared  for  a  Poland  China  hog 
for  110  days,  increasing  its  weight  from  65  to 
256  pounds,  and  sold  it  at  a  profit  of  $20.08. 

The  farmer  of  yesterday  blundered  through 
a  year  and  at  the  end  had  a  very  imperfect  idea 
of  his  profits  and  losses.  He  kept  no  accounts; 
if  he  paid  his  taxes  and  the  interest  on  the  omni- 
present mortgage,  and  established  credit  for 
the  winter  with  his  grocer,  he  was  satisfied. 
Uncle  Sam,  thoroughly  aroused  to  the  impor- 
tance of  increasing  the  farmer's  efficiency,  now 
shows  him  how  to  keep  simple  accounts  and 


126    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

returns  at  the  end  of  the  season  to  analyze 
the  results.  (Farm-management  is  the  subject 
of  many  beguiling  pamphlets;  it  seems  in- 
credible that  any  farmer  should  blindly  go  on 
wasting  time  and  money  when  his  every  weak- 
ness is  anticipated  and  prescribed  for  by  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  and  its  great  army 
of  investigators  and  counsellors !) 

If  there  is  little  cheerful  fiction  dealing  with 
farm  life,  its  absence  is  compensated  for  by  the 
abundance  of  "true  stories"  of  the  most  stim- 
ulating character,  to  be  found  in  the  publica- 
tions of  the  State  agricultural  extension  bu- 
reaus. Professor  Christie's  report  of  the  Indiana 
Extension  Service  for  last  year  recites  the  re- 
sult of  three  years'  observation  of  a  southern 
Indiana  farm  of  213  acres.  In  1914  the  owner 
cleared  $427  above  interest  on  his  capital,  in 
addition  to  his  living.  This,  however,  was 
better  than  the  average  for  the  community, 
which  was  a  cash  return  of  $153.  This  man 
had  nearly  twice  as  much  land  as  his  neighbors, 
carried  more  live-stock,  and  his  crop  yields 
were  twice  as  great  as  the  community  average. 
His  attention  was  called  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  investing  $100  worth  of  feed  and  getting 
back  only  $82  in  his  live-stock  account.  He 
was  expending  780  days  in  the  care  of  his  farm 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     127 

and  stock,  which  the  average  corn-belt  farmer 
could  have  managed  with  605  days  of  labor. 
Acting  on  the  advice  of  the  Extension  Depart- 
ment, he  added  to  his  live-stock,  built  a  silo, 
changed  his  feeding  ration,  and  increased  his 
live-stock  receipts  to  $154  per  $100  of  feed. 
The  care  of  the  additional  live-stock  through 
the  winter  resulted  in  a  better  reward  for  his 
labor  and  the  amount  accredited  to  labor  in- 
come for  the  year  was  $1,505.  The  third  year 
he  increased  his  live-stock  and  poultry,  further 
improved  the  feeding  ration,  and  received  $205 
per  $100  of  feed.  By  adding  to  the  conveniences 
of  his  barn,  he  was  able  to  cut  down  his  expen- 
diture for  hired  labor;  or,  to  give  the  exact 
figures,  he  reduced  the  amount  expended  in 
this  way  from  $515  to  $175.  His  labor  income 
for  the  third  year  was  $3,451.  "Labor  income," 
as  the  phrase  is  employed  in  farm  bookkeeping, 
is  the  net  sum  remaining  after  the  farm-owner 
has  paid  all  business  expenses  of  the  farm  and 
deducted  a  fair  interest  on  the  amount  invested 
in  his  plant. 

I  have  mentioned  the  80-acre  farm  as  afford- 
ing a  living  for  a  family;  but  there  is  no  ignoring 
the  testimony  of  farm-management  surveys, 
covering  a  wide  area,  that  this  unit  is  too  small 
to  yield  the  owner  the  best  results  from  his 


128    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

labor.  In  a  Nebraska  survey  it  is  demon- 
strated that  farms  of  from  200  to  250  acres 
show  better  average  returns  than  those  of  larger 
or  smaller  groups,  but  rainfall,  soil  conditions, 
and  the  farmer's  personal  qualifications  are 
factors  in  all  such  studies  that  make  generaliza- 
tions difficult.  A  diversified  farm  of  160  acres 
requires  approximately  3,000  hours'  labor  a 
year.  Forty-five  acres  of  corn,  shocked  and 
husked,  consume  270  days  of  labor;  like  acre- 
ages of  oats  and  clover,  90  and  45  days  respec- 
tively; care  of  live-stock  and  poultry,  195  days. 
In  summer  a  farmer  often  works  twelve  or  four- 
teen hours  a  day,  while  in  winter,  with  only 
his  stock  to  look  after,  his  labor  is  reduced  to 
three  or  four  hours. 

The  Smith-Hughes  Act  (approved  February, 
1917)  appropriates  annually  sums  which  will 
attain,  in  1926,  a  maximum  of  $3,000,000  "for 
co-operation  with  the  States  in  the  promotion 
of  education  in  agriculture  and  the  trades  and 
industries,  and  in  the  preparation  of  teachers 
of  vocational  subjects,  the  sums  to  be  allotted 
to  the  States  in  the  proportion  which  their  rural 
population  bears  to  the  total  rural  population 
of  the  United  States."  Washington  is  only 
the  dynamic  centre  of  inspiration  and  energy 
in  the  application  of  the  laws  that  make  so 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     129 

generous  provision  for  the  farmer's  welfare. 
The  States  must  enter  into  a  contract  to  de- 
fray their  share  of  the  expense  and  put  the 
processes  into  operation. 

There  was  something  of  prophecy  in  the 
message  of  President  Roosevelt  (February  9, 
1909)  transmitting  to  Congress  the  report  of 
his  Country  Life  Commission.  He  said:  "Upon 
the  development  of  country  life  rests  ultimately 
our  ability,  by  methods  of  farming  requiring 
the  highest  intelligence,  to  continue  to  feed 
and  clothe  the  hungry  nations;  to  supply  the 
city  with  fresh  blood,  clean  bodies,  and  clear 
brains  that  can  endure  the  terrific  strain  of 
modern  life;  we  need  the  development  of  men 
in  the  open  country,  who  will  be  in  the  future, 
as  in  the  past,  the  stay  and  strength  of  the  na- 
tion in  time  of  war,  and  its  guiding  and  con- 
trolling spirit  in  time  of  peace."  The  far-reach- 
ing effect  of  the  report,  a  remarkably  thorough 
and  searching  study  of  farm  conditions,  is  per- 
ceptible in  agencies  and  movements  that  were 
either  suggested  by  it  or  that  were  strengthened 
bv  its  authoritative  utterances. 


Much  has  been  written  of  the  decline  of 
religion  in  rural  communities,  and  melancholy 
statistics  have  been  adduced  as  to  the  abandon- 
ment of  churches.  But  here,  as  in  the  matter 
of  farm  efficiency  and  kindred  rural  problems, 
vigorous  attempts  are  making  to  improve  con- 
ditions. 'The  great  spiritual  needs  of  the  coun- 
try community  just  at  present  are  higher  per- 
sonal and  community  ideals,"  the  Country  Life 
Commission  reported.  "Rural  people  have 
need  to  have  an  aspiration  for  the  highest  pos- 
sible development  of  the  community.  There 
must  be  an  ambition  on  the  part  of  the  people 
themselves  constantly  to  progress  in  all  those 
things  that  make  the  community  life  whole- 
some, satisfying,  educative,  and  complete. 
There  must  be  a  desire  to  develop  a  permanent 
environment  for  the  country  boy  and  girl,  of 
which  they  will  become  passionately  fond.  As 
a  pure  matter  of  education,  the  countryman 
must  learn  to  love  the  country  and  to  have  an 
intellectual  appreciation  of  it."  In  this  con- 
nection I  wish  that  every  farm  boy  and  girl  in 
America  might  read  ''The  Holy  Earth,"  by 
L.  H.  Bailey  (a  member  of  the  commission),  a 
book  informed  with  a  singular  sweetness  and 


nobility,  and  fit  to  be  established  as  an  auxiliary 
reading-book  in  every  agricultural  college  in 
America. 

There  is  abundant  evidence  that  the  religious 
bodies  are  not  indifferent  to  the  importance  of 
vitalizing  the  country  church,  and  here  the  gen- 
eral socializing  movement  is  acting  as  a  stimulus. 
Not  only  have  the  churches,  in  federal  and 
State  conferences,  set  themselves  determinedly 
to  improve  the  rural  parish,  but  the  matter  has 
been  the  subject  of  much  discussion  by  educa- 
tional and  sociological  societies  with  encourag- 
ing gains.  The  wide-spread  movement  for  the 
consolidation  of  country  schools  suggests  in- 
evitably the  combination  of  country  parishes, 
assuring  greater  stability  and  making  possible 
the  employment  of  permanent  ministers  of  a 
higher  intellectual  type,  capable  of  exercising 
that  intelligent  local  leadership  which  all  com- 
mentators on  the  future  of  the  farm  agree  is 
essential  to  progress. 

By  whatever  avenue  the  rural  problem  is  ap- 
proached it  is  apparent  that  it  is  not  sufficient 
to  persuade  American  youth  of  the  economic 
advantages  of  farming  over  urban  employments, 
but  that  the  new  generation  must  be  convinced 
in  very  concrete  ways  that  country  life  affords 
generous  opportunities  for  comfort  and  happi- 


ness,  and  that  there  are  compensations  for  all 
it  lacks.  The  farmer  of  yesterday,  strongly  in- 
dividualistic and  feeling  that  the  world's  rough 
hand  was  lifted  against  him,  has  no  longer  an 
excuse  for  holding  aloof  from  the  countless 
forces  that  are  attempting  to  aid  him  and  give 
his  children  a  better  chance  in  life.  No  other 
figure  in  the  American  social  picture  is  receiving 
so  much  attention  as  the  farmer.  A  great 
treasure  of  money  is  expended  annually  by 
State  and  federal  governments  to  increase  his 
income,  lessen  his  labor,  educate  his  children, 
and  bring  health  and  comfort  to  his  home.  If 
he  fails  to  take  advantage  of  the  vast  machinery 
that  is  at  work  in  his  behalf,  it  is  his  own  fault; 
if  his  children  do  not  profit  by  the  labors  of 
the  State  to  educate  them,  the  sin  is  at  his  own 
door.  In  his  business  perplexities  he  has  but 
to  telephone  to  a  county  agent  or  to  the  ex- 
tension headquarters  of  his  State  to  receive 
the  friendly  counsel  of  an  expert.  If  his  chil- 
dren are  dissatisfied  and  long  for  variety  and 
change,  it  is  because  he  has  concealed  from 
them  the  means  by  which  their  lives  may  be 
quickened  and  brightened. 

With  the  greatest  self-denial  I  refrain  from 
concluding  this  chapter  with  a  ringing  perora- 
tion in  glorification  of  farm  life.  From  a  desk 


Judging  graded  shorthorn  herds  at  the  American  Ko\  al  Live  St<x  k  Show 
in  Kansas  City. 


FARMER  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST     133 

on  the  fifteenth  floor  of  an  office-building,  with 
an  outlook  across  a  smoky,  clanging  industrial 
city,  I  could  do  this  comfortably  and  with  an 
easy  conscience.  But  the  scientist  has  stolen 
farming  away  from  the  sentimentalist  and  the 
theorist.  Fanning,  I  may  repeat,  is  a  business, 
the  oldest  and  the  newest  in  the  world.  No 
year  passes  in  which  its  methods  and  processes 
are  not  carried  nearer  to  perfection.  City  boys 
now  about  to  choose  a  vocation  will  do  well  to 
visit  an  agricultural  college  and  extension  plant, 
or,  better  still,  a  representative  corn-belt  farm, 
before  making  the  momentous  decision.  Per- 
haps the  thousands  of  urban  lads  who  this  year 
volunteered  to  aid  the  farmers  as  a  patriotic 
service  will  be  persuaded  that  the  soil  affords 
opportunities  not  lightly  to  be  passed  by.  No 
one  can  foretell  the  vast  changes  that  will  be 
precipitated  when  the  mighty  war  is  ended;  but 
one  point  is  undebatable:  the  world,  no  matter 
how  low  its  fortunes  may  sink,  must  have  bread 
and  meat.  Tremendous  changes  and  readjust- 
ments are  already  foreshadowed;  but  in  all 
speculations  the  productiveness  of  the  American 
farm  will  continue  to  be  a  factor  of  enormous 
importance. 

A  wide-spread  absorption   of  land  by  large 
investors,    the   increase   of   tenantry,   and    the 


134    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

passing  of  the  farm  family  are  possibilities  of 
the  future  not  to  be  overlooked  by  those  who 
have  at  heart  the  fullest  and  soundest  develop- 
ment of  American  democracy.  For  every  100 
acres  of  American  land  now  under  cultivation 
there  are  about  375  acres  untilled  but  suscep- 
tible of  cultivation.  Here  is  a  chance  for  Amer- 
ican boys  of  the  best  fibre  to  elect  a  calling  that 
more  and  more  demands  trained  intelligence. 
All  things  considered,  the  rewards  of  farming 
average  higher  than  those  in  any  other  occupa- 
tion, and  the  ambitious  youth,  touched  with  the 
new  American  passion  for  service,  for  a  more 
perfect  realization  of  the  promise  of  democracy, 
will  find  in  rural  communities  a  fallow  field 
ready  to  his  hand. 


CHAPTER  IV 
CHICAGO 

'And  yonder  where,  gigantic,  wilful,  young, 
Chicago  sitteth  at  the  northwest  gates, 
With  restless  violent  hands  and  casual  tongue 
Moulding  her  mighty  fates — 

WILLIAM  VAUGHN  MOODY. 


A  FATEFUL  Titan,  brooding  over  a  mam- 
moth chess-board,  now  cautious  in  his 
moves  as  he  shifts  his  myriad  pigmies, 
now   daring,    but   always   resolute,    clear-eyed, 
steady  of  hand,  and  with  no  thought  but  vic- 
tory —  as    such    a    figure    Rodin    might    have 
visualized  twentieth-century  Chicago. 

Chicago  is  not  a  baby  and  utters  no  bleating 
cry  that  it  is  "misunderstood,"  and  yet  a  great 
many  people  have  not  only  misunderstood  or 
misinterpreted  it  but  have  expressed  their  dis- 
like with  hearty  frankness.  To  many  visitors 
Chicago  is  a  city  of  dreadful  night,  to  be  ex- 
plored as  hurriedly  as  possible  with  outward- 
bound  ticket  clenched  tightly  in  hand.  But 
Chicago  may  not  be  comprehended  in  the  usual 
scamper  of  the  tourist;  for  the  interesting  thing 
about  this  city  is  the  people,  and  they  require 

135 


136    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

time.  I  do  not,  of  course,  mean  that  they  are 
all  worthy  of  individual  scrutiny,  but  rather 
that  the  very  fact  of  so  many  human  beings  col- 
lecting there,  living  cheerfully  and  harmoni- 
ously, laboring  and  aspiring  and  illustrating  the 
pressing,  changing  problems  of  our  democracy 
awakens  at  once  the  beholder's  sympathetic 
interest.  Chicago  is  not  New  York,  nor  is  it 
London  or  Paris:  Chicago  is  different.  The 
Chicagoan  will  convince  you  of  this  if  you  fail 
to  see  it;  the  point  has  been  conceded  by  a 
great  number  of  observers  from  all  quarters, 
but  not  in  just  the  same  spirit  in  which  the  citi- 
zen speaks  of  it. 

Both  inspired  and  uninspired  critics  have 
made  Chicago  the  subject  of  a  considerable 
literature  that  runs  the  gamut  of  anxious  con- 
cern, dismal  apprehension,  dismay,  and  dis- 
gust. Mr.  Kipling  saw  the  city  embodied  as  a 
girl  arrayed  in  a  costume  of  red  and  black,  shod 
in  red  shoes  sauntering  jauntily  down  the  gory 
aisle  of  a  slaughter-house.  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells 
boasts  that  he  refrained  from  visiting  the  pack- 
ing-houses owing  to  what  he  describes  as  his 
immense  "repugnance  to  the  killing  of  fixed 
and  helpless  animals."  He  reports  that  he  saw 
nothing  of  those  ''ill-managed,  ill-inspected 
establishments,"  though  he  "smelt  the  un whole- 


CHICAGO  137 

some  reek  from  them  over  and  over  again," 
and  observed  with  trepidation  "the  enormous 
expanse  and  intricacy  of  railroads  that  net  this 
great  industrial  desolation."  Chicago's  press- 
ing need,  he  philosophizes,  is  discipline  —  a 
panacea  which  he  generously  prescribes  not 
only  for  all  that  displeased  him  in  America,  but 
for  Lancashire,  South  and  East  London,  and 
the  Pas  de  Calais.  "Each  man,"  he  ruminates, 
"is  for  himself,  each  enterprise;  there  is  no 
order,  no  prevision,  no  common  and  universal 
plan."  I  have  cheerfully  set  down  this  last 
statement  to  lighten  my  own  burdens,  for  by 
reversing  it  one  may  very  happily  express  the 
real  truth  about  Chicago.  Instead  of  the 
"shoving  unintelligent  proceedings  of  under- 
bred and  morally  obtuse  men,"  great  numbers 
of  men  and  women  of  the  highest  intelligence 
are  constantly  directing  their  talents  toward 
the  amelioration  of  the  very  conditions  that 
grieved  Mr.  \Yells. 

Chicago  may,  to  be  sure,  be  dismissed  in  a 
few  brilliant  phrases  as  the  black  pit  of  perdi- 
tion, the  jumping-off  place  of  the  world;  but  to 
the  serious-minded  American  the  effort  making 
there  for  the  common  uplift  is  too  searching, 
too  intelligent,  too  sincere,  for  sneers.  I  fancy 
that  in  view  of  events  that  have  occurred  in 


138    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

Europe  since  his  visit  to  America  Mr.  Wells 
would  be  less  likely  to  rest  his  case  against  Chi- 
cago on  the  need  of  discipline  alone.  All  that 
discipline  may  do  for  a  people  had  been  achieved 
by  the  Imperial  German  Government  when 
the  Kaiser  started  for  Paris  in  1914;  but  sub- 
jection, obedience,  even  a  highly  developed 
efficiency  are  not  the  whole  of  the  law  and  the 
prophets.  Justice  and  mercy  are  finer  things, 
and  nothing  in  Chicago  is  more  impressive  or 
encouraging  than  the  stubborn  purpose  of  many 
citizens  who  are  neither  foolish  nor  ignorant  to 
win  and  establish  these  twain  for  the  whole. 
It  is  an  unjust  and  ungenerous  assumption  that 
Chicago  is  unaware  of  its  needs  and  dangers, 
or  that  from  year  to  year  no  gains  are  made 
in  the  attempt  to  fuse  and  enlighten  the  mass. 
It  is  the  greatest  laboratory  that  democracy 
has  known.  The  very  fact  that  so  much  effort 
must  go  into  experiment,  that  there  are  more 
than  two  and  a  half  million  distinct  units  to 
deal  with,  with  a  resulting  confusion  in  needs 
and  aims,  adds  not  merely  to  the  perplexity 
but  to  the  fascination  of  the  social  and  political 
enigma.  There  is,  quite  definitely,  a  thing 
called  the  Chicago  spirit,  a  thing  compounded 
of  energy,  faith,  and  hope  —  and  again  energy  ! 
Nor  is  the  energy  all  spent  upon  the  material 


CHICAGO  139 

and  sordid,  for  the  fine,  arresting  thing  is  the 
tremendous  vim  this  lusty  young  giant  among 
the  world's  cities  brings  to  the  solution  of  its 
problems  —  problems  that  deserve  to  be  printed 
in  capitals  out  of  respect  for  their  immensity 
and  far-reaching  importance  to  the  national 
life.  Chicago  does  not  walk  around  her  prob- 
lems, but  meets  them  squarely  and  manfully. 
The  heart  of  the  inquirer  is  won  by  the  perfect 
candor  with  which  the  Chicagoan  replies  to 
criticism;  the  critic  is  advised  that  for  every 
evil  there  is  a  remedy;  indeed,  that  some  agency 
is  at  work  on  that  particular  thing  at  that  par- 
ticular moment.  This  information  is  conveyed 
with  a  smile  that  expresses  Chicago's  faith  and 
hope  —  a  smile  that  may  be  a  little  sad  and 
wistful --but  the  faith  and  the  hope  are  in- 
escapably there. 

Chicago  is  the  industrial  and  financial  clear- 
ing-house, the  inspirational  centre  of  the  arts, 
and  the  playground  for  50,000,000  people.  The 
pilgrim  who  lands  on  the  lake  shore  with  an 
open  mind  and  a  fair  understanding  of  what 
America  is  all  about  —  the  unprejudiced  trav- 
eller —  is  immediately  conscious  that  here,  in- 
deed, is  a  veritable  capital  of  democracy. 

Every  night  three  hundred  or  more  sleeping- 


cars  bear  approximately  4,500  persons  toward 
this  Western  metropolis  on  journeys  varying 
from  five  to  twelve  hours  in  length.  From  in- 
numerable points  it  is  a  night's  run,  and  any 
morning  one  may  see  these  pilgrims  pouring 
out  of  the  railway-stations,  dispersing  upon  a 
thousand  errands,  often  concluded  in  time  for 
the  return  trip  between  six  o'clock  and  mid- 
night. At  times  one  wonders  whether  all  the 
citizens  of  the  tributary  provinces  have  not 
gathered  here  at  once,  so  great  is  the  pressure 
upon  hotel  space,  so  thronged  the  streets.  The 
sleeping-car  holds  no  terrors  for  the  Westerner. 
He  enjoys  the  friendship  of  the  train-crews; 
the  porters  —  many  of  them  veterans  of  the 
service  —  call  him  by  name  and  in  addressing 
them  he  avoids  the  generic  "George,"  which 
the  travelling  salesman  applies  to  all  knights 
of  the  whisk-broom,  and  greets  them  by  their 
true  baptismal  appellations  of  Joshua  or  Oba- 
diah.  Mr.  George  Ade  has  threatened  to  or- 
ganize a  "Society  for  the  Prevention  of  the 
Calling  of  Sleeping-Car  Porters  George"  ! 

The  professional  or  business  man  rises  from 
his  meagre  couch  refreshed  and  keen  for  ad- 
venture and,  after  a  strenuous  day,  returns  to 
it  and  slumbers  peacefully  as  he  is  hurled  home- 
ward. The  man  from  Sioux  City  or  Saint  Joe 


CHICAGO  141 

who  spends  a  day  here  does  not  crawl  into  his 
berth  weary  and  depressed,  but  returns  inspired 
and  cheered  and  determined  to  put  more  vim 
into  his  business  the  next  morning.  On  the 
homeward  trail,  eating  supper  in  company  with 
the  neighbors  he  finds  aboard,  he  dilates  elo- 
quently upon  the  wonders  of  the  city,  upon  its 
enterprise,  upon  the  heartiness  with  which  its 
business  men  meet  their  customers.  Chicago 
men  work  longer  hours  than  their  New  York 
brethren  and  take  pride  in  their  accessibility. 
It  is  easier  to  get  a  hearing  in  high  quarters  in 
any  field  of  endeavor  in  Chicago  than  in  New 
York;  there  is  less  waiting  in  the  anteroom, 
and  a  better  chance  of  being  asked  out  for 
lunch. 

The  West  is  proud  of  Chicago  and  loves  it 
with  a  passionate  devotion.  Nor  is  it  the  pur- 
pose of  these  reflections  to  hint  that  this  mighty 
Mecca  is  unworthy  of  the  adoration  of  the  mil- 
lions who  turn  toward  it  in  affection  and  rever- 
ence. Chicago  not  only  draws  strength  from 
a  vast  territory  but,  through  myriad  agencies 
and  avenues,  sends  back  a  mighty  power  from 
its  huge  dynamo.  It  is  the  big  brother  of  all 
lesser  towns,  throwing  an  arm  about  Davenport 
and  Indianapolis,  Springfield  and  Columbus, 
and  manifesting  a  kindly  tolerance  toward  St. 


142    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

Louis,  Kansas  City,  Detroit,  Minneapolis,  and 
Cleveland,  whose  growth  and  prosperity  lift 
them  to  a  recognized  and  respected  rivalry. 

The  intense  loyalty  of  the  Chicagoan  to  his 
city  is  one  of  his  most  admirable  characteristics 
and  the  secret  of  his  city's  greatness.  He  is 
proud  even  of  the  Chicago  climate,  which  offers 
from  time  to  time  every  variety  of  weather 
known  to  meteorology  and  is  capable  of  effect- 
ing combinations  utterly  new  to  this  most  fas- 
cinating of  sciences.  Chicago's  coldest  day  of 
record  was  in  1872,  when  the  minus  registra- 
tion was  23;  the  hottest  in  1901,  when  the  mer- 
cury rose  to  103.  Such  excesses  are  followed  by 
contrition  and  repentance  and  days  of  ethereal 
mildness.  The  lake  serves  as  a  funnel  down 
which  roar  icy  blasts  direct  from  the  hyperbo- 
reans. The  wind  cuts  like  a  scythe  of  ice  swung 
by  a  giant.  In  summer  the  hot  plains  pour  in 
their  burning  heat;  or,  again,  when  it  pleases  the 
weather-god  to  produce  a  humid  condition,  the 
moisture-charged  air  is  stifling.  But  a  Chicagoan 
does  not  mind  the  winter,  which  he  declares  to 
be  good  for  body  and  soul;  and,  as  for  the  heat, 
he  maintains  —  and  with  a  degree  of  truth  to 
sustain  him  —  that  the  nights  are  always  cool. 
The  throngs  that  gathered  in  Chicago  for  the 
Republican  and  the  Progressive  conventions  in 


CHICAGO  143 

June,  1916,  were  treated  to  a  diversity  of 
weather,  mostly  bad.  It  was  cold;  it  rained 
hideously.  There  were  dismal  hours  of  wait- 
ing for  reports  of  the  negotiations  between  the 
two  bodies  of  delegates  in  which  the  noblest 
oratory  failed  to  bring  warmth  and  cheer. 
Chicago  did  her  worst  that  week,  but  without 
serious  impairment  of  her  prestige  as  the  greatest 
convention  city  in  the  world.  Every  one  said, 
"Isn't  this  just  like  Chicago!"  and  inquired 
the  way  to  the  nearest  quinine. 

"The  Windy  City"  is  a  descriptive  sobriquet. 
There  are  not  only  cold  winds  and  hot  winds 
of  the  greatest  intensity,  but  there  are  innumer- 
able little  gusts  that  spring  up  out  of  nowhere 
for  no  other  conceivable  purpose  than  to  deposit 
dust  or  cinders  in  the  human  eye.  There  is  a 
gesture  acquired  by  all  Chicagoans  —  a  familiar 
bit  of  calisthenics  essential  to  the  preservation 
of  head-gear.  If  you  see  a  man  pursuing  his 
hat  in  a  Chicago  street  you  may  be  sure  that 
he  is  an  outsider;  the  native  knows  by  a  kind 
of  prescience  just  when  the  fateful  breeze  is 
coming,  prepares  for  it,  and  is  never  caught 
unawares.  In  like  manner  the  local  optic  seems 
to  be  impregnable  to  persistent  attacks  of  the 
omnipresent  cinder.  By  what  means  the  eye- 
ball of  a  visitor  becomes  the  haven  for  flying 


144    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

debris,  while  the  native-born  walks  unscathed, 
is  beyond  my  philosophy.  It  must  be  that  the 
eye  of  the  inhabitant  is  trained  to  resist  these 
malevolent  assaults  and  that  the  sharp-edged 
cinder  spitefully  awaits  an  opportunity  to  im- 
pinge upon  the  defenseless  optic  of  passing 
pilgrims.  The  pall  of  smoke  miraculously  dis- 
appears at  times  and  the  cinder  abandons  its 
depredations.  The  sky  may  be  as  blue  over 
Chicago  as  anywhere  else  on  earth.  The  lake 
shimmers  like  silk  and  from  brown,  near  shore, 
runs  away  to  the  horizon  through  every  tint 
of  blue  and  green  and  vague,  elusive  purples. 

II 

Chicago  still  retained,  in  the  years  of  my 
first  acquaintance,  something  of  the  tang  of 
the  wild  onion  which  in  the  Indian  vernacular 
was  responsible  for  its  name.  (I  shudderingly 
take  refuge  in  this  parenthesis  to  avoid  collision 
with  etymological  experts  who  have  spent  their 
lives  sherlocking  the  word's  origin.  The  genesis 
of  "Chicago"  is  a  moot  question,  not  likely  to 
be  settled  at  this  late  day.  Whether  it  meant 
leek,  polecat,  skunkweed,  or  onion  does  not 
greatly  matter.  I  choose  the  wild  onion  from 
the  possibilities,  for  the  highly  unscientific 


CHICAGO  145 

reason  that  it  seems  to  me  the  most  appropriate 
and  flavorsome  of  all  accessible  suggestions.) 

In  the  early  eighties  one  might  stand  by  the 
lakeside  and  be  very  conscious  of  a  West  be- 
yond that  was  still  in  a  pioneer  stage.  At  the 
department  headquarters  of  the  army  might 
be  met  hardy  campaigners  against  the  Indians 
of  mountain  and  plain  who  were  still  a  little 
apprehensive  that  the  telegraph  might  demand 
orders  for  the  movement  of  troops  against  hos- 
tile red  men  along  the  vanishing  frontiers.  The 
battle  of  Wounded  Knee,  in  which  100  warriors 
and  120  women  and  children  were  found  dead 
on  the  field  (December  29,  1890),  might  almost 
have  been  observed  from  a  parlor-car  window. 
It  may  have  been  that  on  my  visits  I  chanced 
to  touch  circles  dominated  by  Civil  War 
veterans,  but  great  numbers  of  these  diverted 
their  energies  to  peaceful  channels  in  Chicago 
at  the  end  of  the  rebellion,  and  they  gave  color 
to  the  city  life.  It  was  a  part  of  the  upbringing 
of  a  mid-Western  boy  of  my  generation  to  rev- 
erence the  heroes  of  the  sixties,  and  it  was  fitting 
that  in  the  land  of  Lincoln  and  in  a  State  that 
gave  Grant  a  regiment  and  started  him  toward 
immortality  there  should  be  frequent  reunions 
of  veterans,  and  political  assemblages  and  agita- 
tions in  which  they  figured,  to  encourage  hero- 


146    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

worship  in  the  young.  Unforgetable  among 
the  more  distinguished  of  these  Civil  War  vet- 
erans was  General  John  A.  Logan,  sometime 
senator  in  Congress  and  Elaine's  running  mate 
in  1884.  In  life  he  was  a  gallant  and  winning 
figure,  and  Saint  Gaudens's  equestrian  statue 
in  Grant  Park  preserves  his  memory  in  a  city 
that  delighted  to  honor  him. 

Chicago's  attractions  in  those  days  included 
summer  engagements  of  Theodore  Thomas's 
orchestra,  preceding  Mr.  Thomas's  removal  to 
the  city  and  the  founding  of  the  orchestra  that 
became  his  memorial.  Concerts  were  given  in 
an  exposition  hall  on  the  site  now  occupied 
by  the  Art  Institute,  with  railway-trains  gayly 
disporting  on  the  lake  side  of  the  building.  So 
persistent  is  the  association  of  ideas,  that  to 
this  day  I  never  hear  the  Fifth  Symphony  or 
the  Tannhauser  Overture  free  of  the  rumble 
and  jar  and  screech  of  traffic.  It  was  in  keeping 
with  Chicago's  good-humored  tolerance  of  the 
incongruous  and  discordant  in  those  years  that 
the  scores  of  Beethoven  and  Wagner  should  be 
punctuated  by  locomotive  whistles,  and  that 
pianissimo  passages  should  be  drowned  in  the 
grinding  of  brakes. 

At  this  period  David  Swing  stood  every  Sun- 
day morning  in  Central  Music  Hall  addressing 


CHICAGO  147 

large  audiences,  and  he  looms  importantly  in 
the  Chicago  of  my  earliest  knowledge.  Swing 
was  not  only  a  fine  classical  scholar  —  he  lec- 
tured charmingly  on  the  Greek  poets  —  but 
he  preached  a  gospel  that  harmonized  with  the 
hopeful  and  liberal  Chicago  spirit  as  it  gathered 
strength  and  sought  the  forms  in  which  it  has 
later  declared  itself.  He  was  not  an  orator  in 
the  sense  that  Ingersoll  and  Beecher  were;  as 
I  remember,  he  always  read  his  sermons  or 
addresses;  but  he  was  a  strikingly  individual 
and  magnetic  person,  whose  fine  cultivation 
shone  brilliantly  in  his  discourses.  In  the  ret- 
rospect it  seems  flattering  to  the  Chicago  of 
that  time  that  it  recognized  and  appreciated 
his  quality  in  spite  of  an  unorthodoxy  that  had 
caused  his  retirement  from  the  formal  ministry. 
The  third  member  of  a  trinity  that  lingers 
agreeably  in  my  memory  is  Eugene  Field. 
Journalism  has  known  no  more  versatile  ge- 
nius, and  his  column  of  "Sharps  and  Flats"  in 
the  Morning  News  (later  the  Record)  voiced  the 
Chicago  of  his  day.  Here  indubitably  was 
the  flavor  of  the  original  wild-onion  beds  of  the 
Jesuit  chronicles !  Field  became  an  institution 
quite  as  much  as  Thomas  and  Swing,  and  reached 
an  audience  that  ultimately  embraced  the  whole 
United  States.  The  literary  finish  of  his  para- 


148    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

graphs,  their  wide  range  of  subject,  their  tone, 
varying  from  kindly  encouraging  comment  on 
a  new  book  of  verse  that  had  won  his  approval 
to  a  mocking  jibe  at  some  politician,  his  hatred 
of  pretense,  the  plausibility  of  the  hoaxes  he 
was  constantly  perpetrating,  gave  an  infinite 
zest  to  his  department.  The  most  devoted  of 
Chicagoans,  he  nevertheless  laid  a  chastening 
hand  upon  his  fellow  citizens.  In  an  ironic 
vein  that  was  perhaps  his  best  medium  he  would 
hint  at  the  community's  lack  of  culture,  though 
he  would  be  the  first  to  defend  the  city  from 
such  assaults  from  without  the  walls.  He  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  coming  of  Edmund  Clar- 
ence Stedman  with  announcements  of  a  series 
of  bizarre  entertainments  in  the  poet's  honor, 
including  a  street  parade  in  which  the  meat- 
packing industry  was  to  be  elaborately  repre- 
sented. He  gave  circulation  to  a  story,  purely 
fanciful,  that  Joel  Chandler  Harris  was  born  in 
Africa,  where  his  parents  were  missionaries, 
thus  accounting  for  "Uncle  Remus's"  intimate 
acquaintance  with  negro  characters  and  folk- 
lore. His  devotion  to  journalism  was  such  that 
he  preferred  to  publish  his  verses  in  his  news- 
paper rather  than  in  magazines,  often  hoarding 
them  for  weeks  that  he  might  fill  a  column  with 
poems  and  create  the  impression  that  they  were 


CHICAGO  149 

all  flung  off  as  part  of  the  day's  work,  though, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  were  the  result  of  the 
most  painstaking  labor.  With  his  legs  thrown 
across  a  table  he  wrote,  on  a  pad  held  in  his 
lap,  the  minute,  perpendicular  hand,  with  its 
monkish  rubrications,  that  gave  distinction  to 
all  his  "copy."  Among  other  accomplishments 
he  was  a  capital  recitationist  and  mimic.  There 
was  no  end  to  the  .variety  of  ways  in  which  he 
could  interest  and  amuse  a  company.  He  was 
so  pre-eminently  a  social  being  that  it  was  dif- 
ficult to  understand  how  he  produced  so  much 
when  he  yielded  so  readily  to  any  suggestion 
to  strike  work  for  any  enterprise  that  promised 
diversion.  I  linger  upon  his  name  not  because 
of  his  talents  merely  but  because  he  was  in  a 
very  true  sense  the  protagonist  of  the  city  in 
those  years;  a  veritable  genius  loci  who  expressed 
a  Chicago,  "wilful,  young,"  that  was  disposed 
to  stick  its  tongue  in  its  cheek  in  the  presence 
of  the  most  exalted  gods. 

My  Chicago  of  the  consulship  of  Plancus 
was  illuminated  also  by  the  National  League 
ball  club,  whose  roster  contained  "names  to 
fill  a  Roman  line"  "Pop"  Anson,  Clarkson, 
Williamson,  Ryan,  Pfeffer,  and  "Mike"  Kelley. 
Chicago  displayed  hatchments  of  woe  on  her 
portals  when  Kelley  was  "sold  to  Boston"  for 


150    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

$10,000  !  In  his  biography  of  Field  Mr.  Slason 
Thompson  has  preserved  this  characteristic 
paragraph  —  only  one  of  many  in  which  the 
wit,  humorist,  and  poet  paid  tribute  to  Kelley's 
genius : 

"Benjamin  Harrison  is  a  good,  honest, 
patriotic  man,  and  we  like  him.  But  he  never 
stole  second  base  in  all  his  life  and  he  could 
not  swat  Mickey  Welch's  down  curves  over 
the  left-field  fence.  Therefore,  we  say  again, 
as  we  have  said  many  times  before,  that,  much 
as  we  revere  Benjamin  Harrison's  purity  and 
amiability,  we  cannot  but  accord  the  tribute 
of  our  sincerest  admiration  to  that  paragon 
of  American  manhood,  Michael  J.  Kelley." 

Ill 

It  must  be  said  for  Chicago  that  to  the  best 
of  her  ability  her  iniquities  are  kept  in  the  open ; 
she  conceals  nothing;  it  is  all  there  for  your 
observation  if  you  are  disposed  to  pry  into  the 
heart  of  the  matter.  The  rectilinear  system 
of  streets  exposes  the  whole  city  to  the  sun's 
eye.  One  is  struck  by  the  great  number  of 
foreign  faces,  and  by  faces  that  show  a  blend- 
ing of  races  —  a  step,  perhaps,  toward  the  evo- 
lution of  some  new  American  type.  On  Michigan 


CHICAGO  151 

Avenue,  where  on  fair  afternoons  something  of 
the  brilliant  spectacle  of  Fifth  Avenue  is  repro- 
duced, women  in  bright  turbans,  men  in  modifi- 
cations of  their  national  garb  —  Syrians,  Greeks, 
Turks,  Russians  and  what-not  —  are  caught  up 
and  hurried  along  in  the  crowd.  In  the  shopping 
centres  of  Wabash  Avenue  and  State  Street  the 
foreign  element  is  present  constantly,  and  even 
since  the  war's  abatement  of  immigration  these 
potential  citizens  are  daily  in  evidence  in  the 
railway-stations.  Yet  one  has  nowhere  the  sense 
of  congestion  that  is  so  depressing  in  New  York's 
East  Side;  the  overcrowding  is  not  so  apparent 
even  where  the  conditions  are  the  worst  Chicago 
has  to  offer. 

My  search  for  the  picturesque  had  been  dis- 
appointing until,  quite  undirected,  I  stumbled 
into  Maxwell  Street  one  winter  morning  and 
found  its  Jewish  market  to  my  liking.  The 
"Ham  Fair"  in  Paris  is  richer  in  antiquarian 
loot,  but  Maxwell  Street  is  enough;  'twill  serve  ! 
Here  we  have  squalor,  perhaps,  and  yet  a  pretty 
clean  and  a  wholly  orderly  squalor.  Innumer- 
able booths  litter  the  sidewalks  of  this  thorough- 
fare between  Halstead  and  Jefferson  Streets, 
and  merchandise  and  customers  overflow  into 
the  streets  until  traffic  is  blocked.  Fruits,  vege- 
tables, meats,  fowls,  raiment  of  every  kind  are 


152    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

offered.  Bushel-baskets  are  the  ordained  re- 
ceptacle for  men's  hats.  A  fine  leisure  char- 
acterizes the  movements  and  informs  the 
methods  of  the  cautious  purchaser.  Cages  of 
pigeons  proudly  surmounting  coops  of  fowls 
suggested  that  their  elevation  might  be  attrib- 
utable to  some  special  sanctity  or  reservation 
for  sacrificial  rites.  A  cynical  policeman  (I  saw 
but  one  guardian  of  the  peace  in  the  course  of 
three  visits)  rudely  dispelled  this  illusion  with 
a  hint  that  these  birds,  enjoying  a  free  range  of 
the  air,  had  doubtless  been  feloniously  captured 
for  exposure  to  sale  in  the  market-place  —  an 
imputation  upon  the  bearded  keepers  of  the 
bird  bazaars  that  I  reject  with  scorn.  Negroes 
occasionally  cross  the  bounds  of  their  own 
quarter  to  shop  among  these  children  of  the 
Ghettos  —  I  wonder  whether  by  some  instinc- 
tive confidence  in  the  good-will  of  a  people  who 
like  themselves  do  daily  battle  with  the  most 
deeply  planted  of  all  prejudices. 

Chicago  is  rich  in  types;  human  nature  is 
comprehensively  represented  with  its  best  and 
worst.  It  should  be  possible  to  find  here,  mid- 
way of  the  seas,  the  typical  American,  but  I 
am.  mistrustful  of  my  powers  of  selection  in  so 
grave  a  matter.  There  are  too  many  men  ob- 
servable in  office-buildings  and  in  clubs  who 


CHICAGO  153 

might  pass  as  typical  New  Yorkers  if  they  were 
encountered  in  Fifth  Avenue,  to  make"  possible 
any  safe  choice  for  the  artist's  pencil.  There  is 
no  denying  that  the  average  Chicagoan  is  less 
"smart"  than  the  New  Yorker.  The  pressing 
of  clothes  and  nice  differentiations  in  haber- 
dashery seem  to  be  less  important  to  the  male 
here  than  to  his  New  York  cousin.  I  spent  an 
anxious  Sunday  morning  in  quest  of  the  silk 
hat,  and  reviewed  the  departing  worshippers  in 
the  neighborhood  of  many  temples  in  this  search, 
but  the  only  toppers  I  found  were  the  crowning 
embellishments  of  two  colored  gentlemen  in 
South  State  Street. 

Perhaps  the  typical  Chicagoan  is  the  com- 
muter who,  after  the  day's  hurry  and  fret, 
ponders  the  city's  needs  calmly  by  the  lake 
shore  or  in  prairie  villages.  Chicago's  suburbs 
are  felicitously  named  —  Kenilworth,  Winnetka, 
Hubbard  Woods,  Ravinia,  Wilmette,  Oak  Park, 
and  Lake  Forest.  But  neither  the  opulence  of 
Lake  Forest  and  Winnetka,  nor  polo  and  a 
famous  golf-course  at  Wheaton  can  obscure 
the  merits  of  Evanston.  The  urban  Chicagoan 
becomes  violent  at  the  mention  of  Evanston, 
yet  here  we  find  a  reservoir  of  the  true  West- 
ern folksiness,  and  Chicago  profits  by  its  pro- 
pinquity. Evanston  goes  to  church,  Evanston 


154    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

reads,  Evanston  is  shamelessly  high-brow  with 
a  firm  substratum  of  evangelicanism.  Here, 
on  spring  mornings,  Chopin  floats  through 
many  windows  across  the  pleasantest  of  hedges 
and  Dostoyefsky  is  enthroned  by  the  evening 
lamp.  The  girl  who  is  always  at  the  tennis- 
nets  or  on  the  golf-links  of  Evanston  is  the  same 
girl  one  has  heard  at  the  piano,  or  whose  profile 
is  limned  against  the  lamp  with  the  green  shade 
as  she  ponders  the  Russians.  She  is  symbolic 
and  evocative  of  Chicago  in  altissimo.  Her 
father  climbs  the  heights  perforce  that  he  may 
not  be  deprived  of  her  society.  Fitted  by  nature 
to  adorn  the  bright  halls  of  romance,  she  is 
the  sternest  of  realists.  She  discusses  politics 
with  sophistication,  and  you  may  be  sure  she 
belongs  to  many  societies  and  can  wield  the 
gavel  with  grace  and  ease.  She  buries  herself 
at  times  in  a  city  settlement,  for  nothing  is  so 
important  to  this  young  wroman  as  the  uplift 
of  the  race;  and  in  so  far  as  the  race's  destiny 
is  in  her  hands  I  cheerfully  volunteer  the  opinion 
that  its  future  is  bright. 

I  hope,  however,  to  be  acquitted  of  un- 
graciousness if  I  say  that  the  most  delightful 
person  I  ever  met  in  Chicago,  where  an  exact- 
ing social  taste  may  find  amplest  satisfaction, 
and  where,  in  the  academic  shades  of  three 


CHICAGO  155 

universities  (Northwestern,  Lake  Forest,  and 
Chicago),  one  may  find  the  answer  to  a  question 
in  any  of  the  arts  or  sciences  —  the  most  re- 
freshing and  the  most  instructive  of  my  en- 
counters was  with  a  lady  who  followed  the 
vocation  of  a  pickpocket  and  shoplifter.  A 
friend  of  mine  who  is  engaged  in  the  detection 
of  crime  in  another  part  of  the  universe  had 
undertaken  to  introduce  me  to  the  presence  of 
a  "gunman,"  a  species  of  malefactor  that  had 
previously  eluded  me.  Meeting  this  detective 
quite  unexpectedly  in  Chicago,  he  made  it  pos- 
sible for  me  to  observe  numbers  of  gangsters, 
or  persons  he  vouched  for  as  such  —  gentlemen 
willing  to  commit  murder  for  a  fee  so  ridicu- 
lously low  that  it  would  be  immoral  for  me  to 
name  it. 

It  is  enough  that  I  beheld  and  even  conversed 
with  a  worthy  descendant  of  the  murderers  of 
Elizabethan  tragedy  —  one  who  might  confess, 
with  the  Second  Murderer  in  Macbeth: 

"I  am  one,  my  liege, 

Whom  the  vile  blows  and  buffets  of  the  world 
Have  so  incens'd  that  I  am  reckless  what 
I  do  to  spite  the  world." 

But  it  was  even  more  thrilling  to  be  admitted, 
after  a  prearranged  knock  at  the  back  door, 
into  the  home  of  a  woman  of  years  whose  fife 


156    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

has  been  one  long  battle  with  the  social  order. 
Assured  by  my  friend  that  I  was  a  trustworthy 
person,  or,  in  the  vernacular,  "all  right,"  she 
entered  with  the  utmost  spirit  into  the  dis- 
cussion of  larceny  as  she  had  practised  it.  Only 
a  week  earlier  she  had  been  released  from  the 
Bridewrell  after  serving  a  sentence  for  shop- 
lifting, and  yet  her  incarceration  —  only  one 
of  a  scries  of  imprisonments  —  had  neither 
embittered  her  nor  dampened  her  zest  for  life. 
She  met  my  inquiries  as  to  the  hazards  of  the 
game  with  the  most  engaging  candor.  I  am 
ashamed  to  confess  that  as  she  described  her 
adventures  I  could  understand  something  of 
the  lawless  joy  she  found  in  the  pitting  of  her 
wits  against  the  law.  She  had  lived  in  Chicago 
all  her  life  and  knew  its  every  corner.  The 
underworld  was  an  open  book  to  her;  she  pa- 
tiently translated  for  my  benefit  the  thieves' 
argot  she  employed  fluently.  She  instructed 
me  with  gusto  and  humor  in  the  most  approved 
methods  of  shoplifting,  with  warnings  as  to 
the  machinery  by  which  the  big  department 
stores  protect  themselves  from  her  kind.  She 
was  equally  wise  as  to  the  filching  of  purses, 
explaining  that  this  is  best  done  by  three  con- 
spirators if  a  crowded  street-car  be  the  chosen 
scene  of  operations.  Her  own  function  was 


CHICAGO  157 

usually  the  gentle  seizure  of  the  purse,  to  be 
passed  quickly  back  to  a  confederate,  and  he 
in  turn  was  charged  with  the  responsibility  of 
conveying  it  to  a  third  person,  who  was  expected 
to  drop  from  the  rear  platform  and  escape. 
Having  elucidated  this  delicate  transaction,  she 
laughed  gleefully.  "Once  on  a  Wabash  Avenue 
car  I  nipped  a  purse  from  a  woman's  lap  and 
passed  it  back,  thinking  a  girl  who  was  working 
with  me  was  right  there,  but  say  —  I  handed  it 
to  a  captain  of  police!"  Her  husband,  a  bur- 
glar of  inferior  talents,  sitting  listlessly  in  the 
dingy  room  that  shook  under  the  passing  ele- 
vated trains,  took  a  sniff  of  cocaine.  When  I 
professed  interest  in  the  proceeding  she  said  she 
preferred  the  hypodermic,  and  thereupon  mixed 
a  potion  for  herself  and  thrust  the  needle  into 
an  arm  much  swollen  from  frequent  injections. 
Only  the  other  day,  a  year  after  this  visit,  I 
learned  that  she  was  again  in  durance,  this 
time  for  an  ingenious  attempt  to  defraud  an 
insurance  company. 

IV 

In  the  field  of  social  effort  Chicago  has  long 
stood  at  the  fore,  and  the  experiments  have 
continued  until  a  good  many  debatable  points 


158    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

as  to  method  have  been  determined.  Hull 
House  and  Miss  Jane  Addams  are  a  part  of 
American  history.  There  are  those  in  Chicago 
who  are  sceptical  as  to  the  value  of  much  of 
the  machinery  employed  in  social  betterment, 
but  they  may  be  silenced  effectively  by  a  ques- 
tion as  to  just  what  the  plight  of  the  two  and 
a  half  million  would  be  if  so  many  high-minded 
people  had  not  consecrated  themselves  to  the 
task  of  translating  America  into  terms  of  ser- 
vice for  the  guidance  and  encouragement  of  the 
poor  and  ignorant.  The  spirit  of  this  endeavor 
is  that  expressed  in  Arnold's  lines  on  Goethe: 

"He  took  the  suffering  human  race, 
He  read  each  wound,  each  weakness  clear; 
And  struck  his  finger  on  the  place 
And  said:  Thou  ailest  here  and  here!" 

And  when  the  diagnosis  has  been  made  some 
one  in  this  city  of  hope  is  ready  with  a  remedy. 
When  I  remarked  to  a  Chicago  alderman 
upon  the  great  number  of  agencies  at  work  in 
Chicago  for  social  betterment,  he  said,  with 
manifest  pride:  "This  town  is  full  of  idealists  !" 
What  strikes  the  visitor  is  that  so  many  of  these 
idealists  are  practical-minded  men  and  women 
who  devote  a  prodigious  amount  of  time,  energy, 
and  money  to  the  promotion  of  social  welfare. 
It  is  impossible  to  examine  a  cross-section  any- 


CHICAGO  159 

where  without  finding  vestigia  of  welfare  effort, 
or  traces  of  the  movements  for  political  reform 
represented  in  the  Municipal  Voters'  League, 
the  Legislative  League,  or  the  City  Club. 

It  is  admitted  (grudgingly  in  some  quarters) 
that  the  strengthening  of  the  social  fabric  has 
carried  with  it  an  appreciable  elevation  of  polit- 
ical ideals,  though  the  proof  of  this  is  less  im- 
pressive than  we  should  like  to  have  it.  It  is 
unfortunately  true  that  an  individual  may 
be  subjected  to  all  possible  saving  influences  — 
transformed  into  a  clean,  reputable  being,  yet 
continue  to  view  his  political  obligations  as 
through  a  glass  darkly.  Nor  is  the  average 
citizen  of  old  American  stock,  who  is  satisfied, 
very  often,  to  accept  any  kind  of  local  govern- 
ment so  long  as  he  is  not  personally  annoyed 
about  it,  a  wholly  inspiring  example  to  the 
foreign-born.  The  reformer  finds  it  necessary 
to  work  coincidentally  at  both  ends  of  the  social 
scale.  The  preservation  of  race  groups  in  Chi- 
cago's big  wards  (the  vote  in  these  political 
units  ranges  from  eight  to  thirty-six  thousand), 
is  essential  to  safe  manipulation.  The  bosses 
are  not  interested  in  the  successful  operation 
of  the  melting-pot.  It  is  much  easier  for  them 
to  buy  votes  collectively  from  a  padrone  than 
to  negotiate  writh  individuals  whose  minds  have 


160    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

been  "corrupted"  by  the  teachers  of  political 
honesty  in  settlements  and  neighborhood 
houses.  However,  the  Chicago  bosses  enjoy 
little  tranquillity;  some  agency  is  constantly 
on  their  heels  with  an  impudent  investigation 
that  endangers  their  best-laid  devices  for  "pro- 
tection." 

As  an  Americanizing  influence,  important  as 
a  means  of  breaking-up  race  affiliations  that 
facilitate  the  "delivery"  of  votes,  Chicago  has 
developed  a  type  of  recreation  park  that  gives 
promise  of  the  best  results.  The  first  of  these 
were  opened  in  the  South  Park  district  in  1905. 
There  are  now  thirty-five  such  centres,  which, 
without  paralleling  or  infringing  upon  the  work 
of  other  social  agencies,  greatly  widen  the  scope 
of  the  city's  social  service.  These  parks  com- 
prise a  playground  with  baseball  diamond, 
tennis-courts,  an  outdoor  swimming-pool,  play- 
grounds for  young  children,  and  a  field-house 
containing  a  large  assembly-hall,  club-rooms,  a 
branch  library,  and  shower-baths  with  locker- 
rooms  for  men  and  women.  Skating  is  offered 
as  a  winter  diversion,  and  the  halls  may  be  used 
for  dances,  dramatic,  musical,  and  other  neigh- 
borhood entertainments.  Clubs  organized  for 
the  study  of  civic  questions  meet  in  these  houses; 
there  are  special  classes  for  the  instruction  of 


CHICAGO  161 

foreigners  in  the  mystery  of  citizenship;  and 
schemes  of  welfare  work  are  discussed  in  the 
neighborhood  councils  that  are  encouraged  to 
debate  municipal  problems  and  to  initiate  new 
methods  of  social  service.  A  typical  centre  is 
Dvorak  Park,  ninety-five  per  cent  of  whose 
patrons  are  Bohemians.  Among  its  organiza- 
tions are  a  Bohemian  Old  Settlers'  Club  and  a 
Servant  Girls'  Chorus.  Colonel  H.  C.  Car- 
baugh,  of  the  Civil  Service  Board  of  South 
Park  Commissioners,  in  an  instructive  volume, 
"Human  Welfare  Work  in  Chicago,"  calls  these 
park  centres  "public  community  clearing- 
houses." They  appeal  the  more  strongly  to 
the  neighborhoods  they  serve  from  the  fact 
that  they  are  provided  by  the  municipality, 
and,  while  under  careful  and  sympathetic  super- 
vision, are  in  a  very  true  sense  the  property 
of  the  people.  Visits  are  exchanged  by  the 
musical,  gymnastic,  or  other  societies  of  the 
several  communities,  with  a  view  to  promoting 
fellowship  between  widely  separated  neighbor- 
hoods. 

One  has  but  to  ask  in  Chicago  whether  some 
particular  philanthropic  or  welfare  work  has 
been  undertaken  to  be  borne  away  at  once  to 
observe  that  very  thing  in  successful  operation. 
It  is  a  fair  statement  that  no  one  need  walk 


162    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

the  streets  of  the  city  hungry.  Many  doors 
stand  ajar  for  the  despairing.  A  common  in- 
dictment of  the  churches,  that  they  have  neg- 
lected the  practical  application  of  Christianity 
to  humanity's  needs,  hardly  holds  against  Chi- 
cago's churches.  The  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  has  long  been  zealous  in  philanthropic 
and  welfare  work,  and  Methodists,  Presbyteri- 
ans and  Baptists  are  conspicuously  active  in 
these  fields.  The  Catholic  Church  in  Chicago 
extends  a  helping  hand  through  forty-five  alert 
and  well-managed  agencies.  The  total  dis- 
bursement of  the  Associated  Jewish  Charities 
for  the  year  ending  May,  1916,  was  $593,466, 
and  the  Jewish  people  of  Chicago  contribute 
generously  to  social-welfare  efforts  outside  their 
fold.  The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
conducts  a  great  number  of  enterprises,  includ- 
ing a  nineteen-story  hotel,  built  at  a  cost  of 
$1,350,000,  which  affords  temporary  homes  to 
the  thousands  of  young  men  who  every  year 
seek  employment  in  Chicago.  This  huge  struc- 
ture contains  1,821  well-ventilated  rooms  that 
are  rented  at  from  thirty  to  fifty  cents  a  day. 
The  Chicago  Association  has  twenty -nine  widely 
distributed  branches,  offering  recreation,  voca- 
tional instruction,  and  spiritual  guidance.  The 
Salvation  Army  addresses  itself  tirelessly  to 


CHICAGO  163 

Chicago's  human  problem.  Colonel  Carbaugh 
thus  summarizes  the  army's  work  for  the  year 
ending  in  September,  1916:  "At  the  various 
institutions  for  poor  men  and  women  151,501 
beds  and  meals  were  worked  for;  besides  which 
$38,779.98  in  cash  was  paid  to  the  inmates  for 
work  done.  To  persons  who  were  not  in  a  po- 
sition to  work,  or  whom  it  was  impossible  to 
supply  with  work,  111,354  beds  and  meals,  11,- 
330  garments  and  pairs  of  shoes,  and  123  tons 
of  coal  were  given  without  charge." 

The  jaunty  inquirer  for  historical  evidences  — 
hoary  ruins  "out  of  fashion,  like  a  rusty  mail 
in  monumental  mockery"  -  is  silenced  by  the 
multiplicity  of  sentry-houses  that  mark  the  line 
of  social  regeneration  and  security.  Chicago  is 
carving  her  destiny  and  in  no  small  degree 
moulding  the  future  of  America  by  these  labo- 
rious processes  brought  to  bear  upon  humanity 
itself.  Perhaps  the  seeker  in  quest  of  the  spirit 
of  Chicago  better  serves  himself  by  sitting  for 
an  hour  in  a  community  centre,  in  a  field-house, 
in  the  juvenile  court,  in  one  of  the  hundreds  of 
places  where  the  human  problem  is  met  and 
dealt  with  hourly  than  in  perusing  tables  of 
statistics. 

At  every  turn  one  is  aware  that  no  need,  no 
abuse  is  neglected,  and  an  immeasurable  pa- 


164    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

tience  characterizes  all  this  labor.  One  looks  at 
Chicago's  worst  slum  with  a  sense  that  after  all 
it  is  not  so  bad,  or  that  at  any  rate  it  is  not 
hopeless.  Nothing  is  hopeless  in  a  city  where 
the  highest  reach  down  so  constantly  to  the 
lowest,  where  the  will  to  protect,  to  save,  to 
lift  is  everywhere  so  manifest.  This  will,  this 
determination  is  well  calculated  to  communicate 
a  certain  awe  to  the  investigator:  no  other  ex- 
pression of  the  invincible  Chicago  spirit  is  so 
impressive  as  this. 


Anno  Urbis  Conditce  may  not  be  appended 
to  any  year  in  the  chronicles  of  a  city  that  has 
so  repeatedly  rebuilt  itself  and  that  goes  cheer- 
fully on  demolishing  yesterday's  structures  to 
make  way  for  the  nobler  achievements  of  to- 
morrow. While  the  immediate  effect  of  the 
World's  Columbian  Exposition  of  1892-3  was 
to  quicken  the  civic  impulse  and  arouse  Chicago 
to  a  sense  of  her  own  powers,  a  lasting  and  con- 
crete result  is  found  in  the  ambition  inspired 
by  the  architectural  glories  of  the  fair  to  invoke 
the  same  arts  for  the  city's  permanent  beauti- 
fication.  The  genius  of  Mr.  Daniel  H.  Burn- 
ham,  who  waved  the  magic  wand  that  summoned 


CHICAGO  165 

"pillared  arch  and  sculptured  dome"  out  of  flat 
prairie  and  established  "the  White  City"  to 
live  as  a  happy  memory  for  many  millions  in 
all  lands,  was  enlisted  for  the  greater  task. 
Without  the  fair  as  a  background  the  fine  talents 
of  Mr.  Burnham  and  his  collaborator,  Mr.  Ed- 
ward H.  Bennett,  might  never  have  been  exer- 
cised upon  the  city.  Chicago  thinks  in  large 
terms,  and  being  properly  pleased  with  the 
demonstration  of  its  ability  to  carry  through 
an  undertaking  of  heroic  magnitude  it  imme- 
diately sought  other  fields  to  conquer.  The 
fair  had  hardly  closed  its  doors  before  Mr.  Burn- 
ham  and  Mr.  Bennett  were  engaged  by  the 
Commercial  Club  to  prepare  comprehensive 
plans  for  the  perpetuation  of  something  of  the 
charm  and  beauty  of  the  fairy  city  as  a  per- 
manent and  predominating  feature  of  Chicago. 
Clearly  what  served  so  well  as  a  temporary 
matter  might  fill  the  needs  of  all  time.  The 
architects  boldly  attacked  the  problem  of  estab- 
lishing as  the  outer  line,  the  fagade  of  the  city, 
something  distinctive,  a  combination  of  land- 
scape and  architecture  such  as  no  other  Amer- 
ican city  has  ever  created  out  of  sheer  pride, 
determination,  and  sound  taste.  Like  the 
aesthetic  problems,  the  practical  difficulties  im- 
posed by  topography,  commercial  pre-emptions, 


166    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

and  legal  embarrassments  were  intrusted  only 
to  competent  and  sympathetic  hands.  The 
whole  plan,  elaborated  in  a  handsome  volume 
published  in  1909,  with  the  effects  contemplated 
happily  anticipated  in  the  colored  drawings  of 
Mr.  Jules  Guerin,  fixed  definitely  an  ideal  and 
a  goal. 

This  programme  was  much  described  and 
discussed  at  the  time  of  its  inception,  and  I 
had  ignorantly  assumed  that  it  had  been  neg- 
lected in  the  pressure  of  matters  better  cal- 
culated to  resound  in  bank  clearings,  but  I  had 
grossly  misjudged  the  firmness  of  the  Chicago 
fibre.  The  death  of  Mr.  Burnham  left  the 
architectural  responsibilities  of  the  work  in 
the  very  capable  hands  of  Mr.  Bennett.  The 
Commercial  Club,  an  organization  of  highest 
intelligence  and  influence,  steadfastly  supported 
the  plan  until  it  was  reinforced  by  a  strong 
public  demand  for  its  fulfilment.  The  move- 
ment has  been  greatly  assisted  by  Mr.  Charles 
H.  Wacker,  president  of  the  plan  commission 
and  the  author  of  a  primer  on  the  subject  that 
is  used  in  the  public  schools.  Mr.  Wacker's 
vigorous  propaganda,  through  the  press  and 
by  means  of  illustrated  lectures  in  school  and 
neighborhood  houses,  has  tended  to  the  democ- 
ratizing of  what  might  have  passed  as  a  fanci- 


CHICAGO  167 

ful  scheme  of  no  interest  to  the  great  body  of 
the  people. 

With  singular  perversity  nature  vouchsafed 
the  fewest  possible  aids  to  the  architect  for  the 
embellishment  of  a  city  that  had  grown  to 
prodigious  size  before  it  became  conscious  of 
its  artistic  deficiencies.  The  lake  washes  a 
flat  beach,  unbroken  by  any  islanded  bay  to 
rest  the  eye,  and  the  back  door  is  level  with 
limitless  prairie.  There  is  no  hill  on  which  to 
plant  an  acropolis,  and  the  Chicago  River  (trans- 
formed into  a  canal  by  clever  engineering)  of- 
fered little  to  the  landscape-architect  at  any 
stage  of  its  history.  However,  the  distribution 
of  parks  is  excellent,  and  they  are  among  the 
handsomest  in  the  world.  These,  looped  to- 
gether by  more  than  eighty  miles  of  splendid 
boulevards,  afford  four  thousand  acres  of  open 
space.  The  early  pre-emption  of  the  lake  front 
by  railroad-tracks  added  to  the  embarrassments 
of  the  artist,  but  the  plan  devised  by  Messrs. 
Burnham  and  Bennett  conceals  them  by  a 
broadening  of  Grant  Park  that  cannot  fail  to 
produce  an  effect  of  distinction  and  charm. 
Chicago  has  a  playful  habit  of  driving  the  lake 
back  at  will,  and  it  is  destined  to  farther  re- 
cessions. When  the  prodigious  labors  involved 
in  the  plan  are  completed  the  lake  may  be  con- 


168    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

templated  across  green  esplanades,  broken  by 
lagoons ;  peristyles  and  statuary  will  be  a  feature 
of  the  transformed  landscape.  The  new  Field 
Museum  is  architecturally  consonant  with  the 
general  plan;  a  new  art  museum  and  other 
buildings  are  promised  that  will  add  to  the 
variety  and  picturesqueness  of  the  whole.  With 
Michigan  Avenue  widened  and  brought  into 
harmony  with  Grant  Park,  thus  extended  and 
beautified  and  carried  across  the  river  north- 
ward to  a  point  defined  at  present  by  the  old 
water-tower  (one  of  Chicago's  few  antiquities), 
landscape-architecture  will  have  set  a  new  mark 
in  America.  The  congestion  of  north  and 
south  bound  traffic  on  Michigan  Avenue  will  be 
relieved  by  a  double-decked  bridge,  making  pos- 
sible the  classification  of  traffic  and  the  exclusion 
of  heavy  vehicles  from  the  main  thoroughfare. 
All  this  is  promised  very  soon,  now  that  neces- 
sary legislation  and  legal  decisions  are  clearing 
the  way.  The  establishment  of  a  civic  centre, 
with  a  grouping  of  public  buildings  that  would 
make  possible  further  combinations  in  keeping 
with  those  that  are  to  lure  the  eye  at  the  lake- 
side is  projected,  but  may  be  left  for  another 
generation  to  accomplish. 

Chicago's    absorption    in    social    service    and 
well-planned  devices  for   taking  away  the  re- 


CHICAGO  169 

proach  of  its  ugliness  is  not  at  the  expense  of 
the  grave  problems  presented  by  its  politics. 
Here  again  the  inquirer  is  confronted  by  a 
formidable  array  of  citizens,  effectively  or- 
ganized, who  are  bent  upon  making  Chicago  a 
safe  place  for  democracy.  That  Chicago  shall 
be  the  best-governed  city  in  America  is  the 
aspiration  of  great  numbers  of  men  and  women, 
and  one  is  struck  once  more  not  merely  by  the 
energy  expended  in  these  matters  but  by  the 
thoroughness  and  far-sightedness  of  the  efforts 
for  political  betterment.  Illinois  wields  so  great 
an  influence  in  national  affairs  that  strictly 
municipal  questions  suffer  in  Chicago  as  in 
every  other  American  city  where  the  necessities 
of  partisan  politics  constantly  obscure  local 
issues.  The  politics  of  Chicago  is  bewilderingly 
complicated  by  the  complexity  of  its  govern- 
mental machinery. 

It  is  staggering  to  find  that  the  city  has  not 
one  but,  in  effect,  twenty-two  distinct  governing 
agencies,  all  intrusted  with  the  taxing  power ! 
These  include  the  city  of  Chicago,  a  board  of 
education,  a  library  board,  the  Municipal  Tuber- 
culosis Sanitarium,  the  county  government  of 
Cook  County,  the  sanitary  district  of  Chicago, 
and  sixteen  separate  boards  of  park  commis- 
sioners. The  interests  represented  in  these 


170    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

organizations  are,  of  course,  identical  in  so  far 
as  the  taxpaying  citizen  is  concerned.  An 
exhaustive  report  of  the  Chicago  Bureau  of 
Public  Efficiency  published  in  January,  1917, 
reaches  the  conclusion  that  "this  community 
is  poorly  served  by  its  hodgepodge  of  irrespon- 
sible governing  agencies,  not  only  independent 
of  one  another  but  often  pulling  and  hauling 
at  cross-purposes.  A  single  governing  agency, 
in  which  should  be  centred  all  the  local  adminis- 
trative and  legislative  functions  of  the  com- 
munity, but  directly  responsible  to  the  voters, 
would  be  able  to  render  services  which  existing 
agencies  could  not  perform  nearly  so  well,  if 
at  all,  even  if  directed  by  officials  of  exceptional 
ability.  The  present  system,  however,  instead 
of  attracting  to  public  employment  men  of 
exceptional  ability,  tends  to  keep  them  out, 
with  the  result  that  the  places  are  left  at  the 
disposal  of  partisan-spoils  political  leaders." 

The  waste  entailed  by  this  multiplication  of 
agencies  and  resulting  diffusion  of  power  and 
responsibility  is  illustrated  by  the  number  of 
occasions  on  which  the  citizen  is  called  upon 
to  register  and  vote.  The  election  expenses  of 
Chicago  and  Cook  County  for  1916  wrere  more 
than  two  million  dollars,  an  increase  of  one 
hundred  per  cent  in  four  years.  This  does  not, 
of  course,  take  account  of  the  great  sums  ex- 


CHICAGO  171 

pended  by  candidates  and  party  organizations, 
or  the  waste  caused  by  the  frequent  interrup- 
tions to  normal  business.  Chicago's  calendar 
of  election  events  for  1918  includes  opportuni- 
ties for  registration  in  February,  March,  Au- 
gust, and  October;  city  primaries  in  February; 
general  primaries  in  September;  a  city  election 
in  April;  and  a  general  election  in  November. 

Under  the  plan  of  unified  government  pro- 
posed by  the  Bureau  of  Efficiency  there  would 
be  but  three  regular  elections  in  each  four-year 
period,  two  biennial  elections  for  national  and 
State  officials,  and  one  combined  municipal 
and  judicial  election.  A  consolidation  and 
reform  of  the  judicial  machinery  of  Cook  County 
and  Chicago  is  urged  by  the  bureau,  which 
complains  that  the  five  county  courts  and  the 
municipal  court  of  Chicago,  whose  functions 
are  largely  concurrent,  cost  annually  two  and 
a  quarter  million.  There  are  six  separate  clerks' 
offices  and  a  small  army  of  deputy  sheriffs  and 
bailiffs  to  serve  these  courts,  with  an  evident 
paralleling  of  labor.  While  the  city  and  county 
expend  nearly  a  million  dollars  annually  for 
legal  services,  this  is  not  the  whole  item,  for 
the  library  board,  the  board  of  education,  and 
committees  of  the  city  council  may,  on  occasion, 
employ  special  counsel. 

The  policing  of  so  large  a  city,  whose  very 


geographical  position  makes  it  a  convenient 
way  station  for  criminals  of  every  sort,  where 
so  many  races  are  to  be  dealt  with,  and  where 
the  existing  form  of  municipal  government 
keeps  politics  constantly  to  the  fore,  is  beset 
with  well-nigh  insuperable  obstacles.  Last  year 
the  police  department  passed  through  a  fierce 
storm  with  what  seems  to  be  a  resulting  im- 
provement in  conditions.  An  investigator  of 
the  Committee  of  Fifteen,  a  citizens'  organiza- 
tion, declared  in  May,  1917,  that  ten  per  cent 
of  the  men  on  the  police  force  are  "inherently 
crooked  and  ought  to  be  driven  from  the  de- 
partment." To  which  a  police  official  retorted 
that  for  every  crooked  policeman  there  are 
500  crooked  citizens,  an  ill-tempered  aspersion 
too  shocking  for  acceptance.  The  Chicago  Daily 
News  Almanac  records  114,625  arrests  in  1915. 
Half  of  the  total  are  set  down  as  Americans; 
there  were  9,508  negroes,  4,739  Germans,  2,144 
Greeks,  7,644  Polanders,  5,577  Russians,  2,981 
Italians,  and  2,565  Irish.  In  that  year  there 
were  194  murders  —  35  fewer  than  in  1914. 
Comparisons  in  such  matters  are  not  profitable 
but  it  may  be  interesting  to  note  that  in  1915 
there  were  222  murders  in  New  York;  244  in 
1914;  265  in  1913.  Over  3,000  keepers  and  in- 
mates of  Chicago  gaming-houses  were  arrested 


CHICAGO  173 

in  1915.  The  cost  of  the  police  department  is 
in  excess  of  $7,000,000  —  an  amount  just  about 
balanced  by  the  license  fee  paid  by  the  city's 
seven  thousand  saloons.  Until  recently  the 
State  law  closing  saloons  on  Sunday  was  ig- 
nored, but  last  year  the  city  police  department 
undertook  to  enforce  it,  with  (to  the  casual  eye) 
a  considerable  degree  of  success. 

The  report  of  the  Bureau  of  Efficiency  recom- 
mends the  consolidation  of  the  existing  govern- 
ing agencies  into  a  single  government  headed 
by  an  executive  of  the  city-manager  type.  In- 
stead of  a  political  mayor  elected  by  popular 
vote  the  office  would  be  filled  by  the  city  council 
for  an  indefinite  tenure.  The  incumbent  would 
be  the  executive  officer  of  the  council  and  he 
might  be  given  a  seat  in  that  body  without  a 
vote.  The  council  would  be  free  to  go  outside 
the  city  if  necessary  in  its  search  for  a  competent 
mayor  under  this  council-manager  plan.  One 
has  but  to  read  the  Chicago  newspapers  to  be 
satisfied  that  some  such  change  as  here  indicated 
is  essential  to  the  wise  and  economical  govern- 
ment of  the  city.  Battles  between  the  mayor 
and  the  council,  upheavals  in  one  city  depart- 
ment or  another  occur  constantly  with  a  serious 
loss  of  municipal  dignity.  With  deep  humility 
I  confess  my  incompetence  for  the  task  of  de- 


174    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

scribing  the  present  mayor  of  Chicago,  Mr. 
William  Hale  Thompson,  whose  antics  since  he 
assumed  office  have  given  Chicago  a  vast 
amount  of  painful  publicity.  As  a  public  offi- 
cial his  manifold  infelicities  (I  hope  the  term  is 
sufficiently  delicate)  have  at  least  served  to 
strengthen  the  arguments  in  favor  of  the  recall 
as  a  means  of  getting  rid  of  an  unfit  office- 
holder. Last  year  a  general  shaking  up  of  the 
police  department  had  hardly  faded  from  the 
head-lines  before  the  city's  school  system,  a  fre- 
quent storm-centre,  caught  the  limelight.  The 
schools  are  managed  by  a  board  of  trustees  ap- 
pointed by  the  mayor.  On  a  day  last  spring 
(1917)  the  board  met  and  discharged  the  super- 
intendent of  schools  (though  retaining  him  tem- 
porarily), and,  if  we  may  believe  the  news  col- 
umns of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  "Chicago's  mayor 
was  roped,  thrown,  and  tied  so  rapidly  that  the 
crowd  gasped,  laughed,  and  broke  into  a  cheer 
almost  in  one  moment."  I  mention  this  episode, 
which  was  followed  in  a  few  weeks  by  the  rein- 
statement of  the  superintendent  with  an  increase 
of  salary,  as  justifying  the  demand  for  a  form 
of  government  that  will  perform  its  functions 
decently  and  in  order  and  without  constant  dis- 
turbances of  the  public  service  that  result  only 
in  the  encouragement  of  incompetence. 


CHICAGO  175 

The  politicians  will  not  relinquish  so  big  a 
prize  without  a  struggle;  but  one  turns  from 
the  dark  side  of  the  picture  to  admire  the  many 
hopeful,  persistent  agencies  that  are  addressing 
themselves  to  the  correction  of  these  evils.  The 
best  talents  of  the  city  are  devoted  to  just  these 
things.  The  trustees  of  the  Bureau  of  Public 
Efficiency  are  Julius  Rosenwald,  Alfred  L. 
Baker,  Onward  Bates,  George  G.  Tunnell, 
Walter  L.  Fisher,  Victor  Elting,  Allen  B.  Pond, 
and  Frank  I.  Moulton,  whose  names  are  worthy 
of  all  honor  as  typical  of  Chicago's  most  suc- 
cessful and  public-spirited  citizens.  The  City 
Club,  with  a  membership  of  2,400,  is  a  wide- 
awake organization  whose  27  civic  committees, 
enlisting  the  services  of  500  members,  are  con- 
stantly studying  municipal  questions,  institut- 
ing inquiries,  and  initiating  "movements"  well 
calculated  to  annoy  and  alarm  the  powers  that 
prey. 

Space  that  I  had  reserved  for  some  note  of 
Chicago's  industries,  the  vastness  of  the  stock- 
yards, the  great  totals  in  beasts  and  dollars 
represented  in  the  meat-packing  business,  the 
lake  and  railroad  tonnage,  and  like  matters, 
shrinks  under  pressure  of  what  seem,  on  the 
whole,  to  be  things  of  greater  interest  and 
significance.  That  the  total  receipts  of  live- 


176    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

stock  for  one  year  exceeded  14,000,000  with  a 
cash  value  of  $370,938,156  strikes  me  as  less 
impressive  than  the  fact  that  a  few  miles  distant 
from  the  packing-houses  exists  an  art  institute, 
visited  by  approximately  a  million  persons  an- 
nually, and  an  art  school  that  affords  capable 
instruction  to  3,000  students.  Every  encourage- 
ment is  extended  to  these  pupils,  nor  is  the  art- 
ist, once  launched  upon  his  career,  neglected  by 
the  community.  The  city  provides,  through  a 
Commission  for  the  Encouragement  of  Local 
Art,  for  the  purchase  of  paintings  by  Chicago 
artists.  There  are  a  variety  of  private  organi- 
zations that  extend  a  helping  hand  to  the  tyro, 
and  lectures  and  concerts  are  abundantly  pro- 
vided. A  few  years  ago  the  National  Institute 
of  Arts  and  Letters  met  for  the  first  time  in 
Chicago.  It  must  have  been  with  a  certain 
humor  that  the  citizens  spread  for  the  members, 
who  came  largely  from  the  East,  a  royal  ban- 
quet in  the  Sculpture  Hall  of  the  Institute,  as 
though  to  present  Donatello  and  Verrocchio  as 
the  real  hosts  of  the  occasion.  It  is  by  such 
manifestations  that  Chicago  is  prone  to  stifle 
the  charge  of  philistinism. 

With  a  noteworthy  absence  of  self-conscious- 
ness, Chicago  assimilates  a  great  deal  of  music. 
The  symphony  orchestra,  founded  by  Theodore 


Banquet  given  for  the  members  of  the  National  Institute  of  Arts  nn< 

Letters. 


CHICAGO  177 

Thomas  and  conducted  since  his  death  by 
Frederic  Stock,  offers  a  series  of  twenty-eight 
concerts  a  year.  Eight  thousand  contributors 
made  possible  the  building  of  Orchestra  Hall, 
the  organization's  permanent  home.  Boston  is 
not  more  addicted  to  symphonies  than  Chicago. 
Indeed,  on  afternoons  when  concerts  are 
scheduled  the  agitations  of  the  musically  minded 
in  popular  refectories,  the  presence  in  Michigan 
Avenue  of  suburban  young  women,  whom  one 
identifies  at  sight  as  devotees  of  Bach  and 
Brahms,  suggest  similar  scenes  that  are  a  part 
of  the  life  of  Boston.  The  luxury  of  grand  opera 
is  offered  for  ten  weeks  every  winter  by  artists 
of  first  distinction;  and  it  was  Chicago,  we  shall 
frequently  be  reminded,  that  called  New  York's 
attention  to  the  merits  of  Mme.  Galli-Curci. 
Literature  too  is  much  to  the  fore  in  Chicago, 
but  I  shall  escape  from  the  task  of  enumerating 
its  many  practitioners  by  pleading  that  only  a 
volume  would  do  justice  to  the  subject.  The 
contributors  to  Mr.  Bert  Leston  Taylor's  "Line 
o'  Type"  column  in  the  Tribune  testify  daily  to 
the  prevalence  of  the  poetic  impulse  within  the 
city  and  of  an  alert,  mustang,  critical  spirit. 

With  all  its  claims  to  cosmopolitanism  one  is 
nevertheless  conscious  that  Chicago  is  only  a 
prairie  county-seat  that  is  continually  outgrow- 


178    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

ing  its  bounds,  but  is  striving  to  maintain  its 
early  fundamental  devotion  to  decency  and 
order,  and  develop  among  its  millions  the  re- 
spect for  those  things  that  are  more  excellent 
that  is  so  distinguishing  a  trait  of  the  Folks 
throughout  the  West.  Chicago's  strength  is 
the  strength  of  the  soil  that  was  won  for  civili- 
zation and  democracy  by  a  great  and  valorous 
body  of  pioneer  freemen;  and  the  Chicago  spirit 
is  that  of  the  men  and  women  who  plunged  into 
the  West  bearing  in  their  hearts  that  "some- 
thing pretty  fine"  (in  Lincoln's  phrase),  which 
was  the  ideal  of  the  founders  of  the  republic. 
'The  children  of  the  light"  are  numerous 
enough  to  make  the  materialists  and  the  philis- 
tines  uncomfortable  if  not  heartily  ashamed  of 
themselves;  for  it  is  rather  necessary  in  Chicago 
to  have  "interests,"  to  manifest  some  degree  of 
curiosity  touching  the  best  that  has  been  thought 
and  done  in  the  world,  and  to  hold  a  commis- 
sion to  help  and  to  serve  the  community  and 
the  nation,  to  win  the  highest  esteem. 

Every  weakness  and  every  element  of  strength 
in  democracy,  as  we  are  experimenting  with  it, 
has  definite  and  concrete  presentment  in  Chi- 
cago. In  the  trying  months  preceding  and 
following  the  declaration  of  war  with  Germany 
the  city  repeatedly  asserted  its  intense  patriot- 


CHICAGO  179 

ism.  The  predominating  foreign-born  popula- 
tion is  German,  yet  once  the  die  was  cast  these 
citizens  were  found,  except  in  negligible  in- 
stances, supporting  the  American  cause  as  loy- 
ally as  their  neighbors  of  old  American  stock. 
The  city's  patriotic  ardor  was  expressed  repeat- 
edly in  popular  demonstrations  —  beginning 
with  a  preparedness  parade  in  June,  1916,  in 
which  150,000  persons  participated;  in  public 
gatherings  designed  to  unify  sentiment,  not  least 
noteworthy  of  these  being  the  meeting  in  the 
stock-yards  pavilion  in  May,  of  last  year,  when 
12,000  people  greeted  Colonel  Roosevelt.  The 
visit  of  M.  Viviani  and  Field-Marshal  Joffre 
afforded  the  city  another  opportunity  to  mani- 
fest its  devotion  to  the  cause  of  democracy. 
Every  responsibility  entailed  by  America's  en- 
trance into  the  war  was  met  immediately  with 
an  enthusiasm  so  hearty  that  tjbe  Chicago  press 
was  to  be  pardoned  for  indulging  in  ironic  flings 
at  the  East,  which  had  been  gloomily  appre- 
hensive as  to  the  attitude  of  the  Middle  West. 
The  flag  flies  no  more  blithely  or  securely 
anywhere  in  America  than  in  the  great  city 
that  lies  at  the  northern  edge  of  the  prairies 
that  gave  Lincoln  to  be  the  savior  of  the  nation. 
Those  continuing  experiments  and  that  struggle 
for  perfection  that  are  the  task  of  democracy 


180    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

have  here  their  fullest  manifestation,  and  the 
knowledge  that  these  processes  and  undertakings 
are  nobly  guided  must  be  a  stimulus  and  an  in- 
spiration to  all  who  have  at  heart  the  best  that 
may  be  sought  and  won  for  America. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS 

The  great  interior  region  bounded  east  by  the  Alleghanies,  north 
by  the  British  dominions,  west  by  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and 
south  by  the  line  along  which  the  culture  of  corn  and  cotton  meets 
.  .  .  already  has  above  10,000,000  people,  and  will  have  50,000,000 
within  fifty  years  if  not  prevented  by  any  political  folly  or  mistake. 
It  contains  more  than  one-third  of  the  country  owned  by  tfte  United 
States  —  certainly  more  than  1,000,000  square  miles.  Once  half 
as  populous  as  Massachusetts  already  is,  it  would  have  more  than 
75,000,000  people.  A  glance  at  the  map  shows  that,  territorially 
speaking,  it  is  the  great  body  of  the  republic.  The  other  parts  are 
but  marginal  borders  to  it.  —  Lincoln  :  Annual  Message  to  Con- 
gress, December,  1862. 


IF  a  general  participation  in  politics  is  essen- 
tial to  the  successful  maintenance  of  a 
democracy,  then  the  people  of  the  West 
certainly  bear  their  share  of  the  national  bur- 
den. A  great  deal  of  history  has  been  made 
in  what  Lincoln  called  "the  great  body  of  the 
republic,"  and  the  election  of  1916  indicated 
very  clearly  the  growing  power  of  the  West  in 
national  contests,  and  a  manifestation  of  inde- 
pendence that  is  not  negligible  in  any  conjec- 
tures as  to  the  issues  and  leadership  of  the 
immediate  future. 

181 


182    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

A  few  weeks  before  the  last  general  election  I 
crossed  a  Middle  Western  State  in  company 
with  one  of  its  senators,  a  veteran  politician, 
who  had  served  his  party  as  State  chairman  and 
as  chairman  of  the  national  committee.  In  the 
smoking  compartment  was  a  former  governor  of 
an  Eastern  State  and  several  others,  represent- 
ing both  the  major  parties,  who  were  bound  for 
various  points  along  the  line  where  they  were  to 
speak  that  night.  In  our  corner  the  talk  was 
largely  reminiscent  of  other  times  and  bygone 
statesmen.  Republicans  and  Democrats  ex- 
changed anecdotes  with  that  zest  which  distin- 
guishes the  Middle  Western  politician,  men  of 
one  party  paying  tribute  to  the  character  and 
ability  of  leaders  of  the  other  in  a  fine  spirit  of 
magnanimity.  As  the  train  stopped,  from  time 
to  time,  the  United  States  senator  went  out  upon 
the  platform  and  shook  hands  with  friends  and 
acquaintances,  or  received  reports  from  local 
leaders.  Everybody  on  the  train  knew  him; 
many  of  the  men  called  him  by  his  first  name. 
He  talked  to  the  women  about  their  children 
and  asked  about  their  husbands.  The  whole 
train  caught  the  spirit  of  his  cheer  and  friendli- 
ness, and  yet  he  had  been  for  a  dozen  years  the 
most  abused  man  in  his  State.  This  was  all  in 
the  day's  work,  a  part  of  what  has  been  called 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     183 

the  great  American  game.  The  West  makes 
something  intimate  and  domestic  of  its  politics, 
and  the  idea  that  statesmen  must  "keep  close 
to  the  people"  is  not  all  humbug,  not  at  least 
in  the  sense  that  they  hold  their  power  very 
largely  through  their  social  qualities.  They 
must,  as  we  say,  be  "folks." 

Apart  from  wars,  the  quadrennial  presiden- 
tial campaigns  are  America's  one  great  national 
expression  in  terms  of  drama;  but  through 
months  in  which  the  average  citizen  goes  about 
his  business,  grateful  for  a  year  free  of  political 
turmoil,  the  political  machinery  is  never  idle. 
No  matter  how  badly  defeated  a  party  may  be, 
its  State  organization  must  not  be  permitted  to 
fall  to  pieces;  for  the  perfecting  of  an  organiza- 
tion demands  hard  work  and  much  money. 
There  is  always  a  great  deal  of  inner  plotting 
preliminary  to  a  State  or  national  contest,  and 
much  of  this  is  wholly  without  the  knowledge  of 
the  quiet  citizen  whose  active  interests  are 
never  aroused  until  a  campaign  is  well  launched. 
In  State  capitals  and  other  centres  men  meet, 
as  though  by  chance,  and  in  hotel-rooms  debate 
matters  of  which  the  public  hears  only  when 
differences  have  been  reconciled  and  a  harmo- 
nious plan  of  action  has  been  adopted.  Not  a 
day  passes  even  in  an  "off  year"  when  in  the 


corn  belt  men  are  not  travelling  somewhere  on 
political  errands.  There  are  fences  to  repair, 
local  conditions  to  analyze,  and  organizations 
to  perfect  against  the  coming  of  the  next  cam- 
paign. In  a  Western  State  I  met  within  the 
year  two  men  who  had  just  visited  their  gov- 
ernor for  the  purpose  of  throwing  some  "pep" 
into  him.  They  had  helped  to  elect  him  and 
felt  free  to  beard  him  in  the  capitol  to  caution 
him  as  to  his  conduct.  It  is  impossible  to  step 
off  a  train  anywhere  between  Pittsburgh  and 
Denver  without  becoming  acutely  conscious 
that  much  politics  is  forward.  One  campaign 
"doth  tread  upon  another's  heel,  so  fast  they 
follow."  This  does  not  mean  merely  that  the 
leaders  in  party  organizations  meet  constantly 
for  conferences,  or  that  candidates  are  plotting  a 
long  way  ahead  to  secure  nominations,  but  that 
the  great  body  of  the  people  —  the  Folks  them- 
selves—  are  ceaselessly  discussing  new  move- 
ments or  taking  the  measure  of  public  servants. 
The  politician  lives  by  admiration;  he  likes 
to  be  pointed  out,  to  have  men  press  about  him 
to  shake  his  hand.  He  will  enter  a  State  con- 
vention at  just  the  right  moment  to  be  greeted 
with  a  cheer,  of  which  a  nonchalant  or  depreca- 
tory wave  of  the  hand  is  a  sufficient  recognition. 
Many  small  favors  of  which  the  public  never 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     185 

dreams  are  granted  to  the  influential  politician, 
even  when  he  is  not  an  office-holder  —  favors  that 
mean  much  to  him,  that  contribute  to  his  self- 
esteem.  A  friend  who  was  secretary  for  several 
years  of  one  of  the  national  committees  had  a 
summer  home  by  a  quiet  lake  near  an  east-and- 
west  railway-line.  When,  during  a  campaign, 
he  was  suddenly  called  to  New  York  or  Chicago 
he  would  wire  the  railway  authorities  to  order 
one  of  the  fast  trains  to  pick  him  up  at  a  lonely 
station,  wrhich  it  passed  ordinarily  at  the  high- 
est speed.  My  friend  derived  the  greatest  satis- 
faction from  this  concession  to  his  prominence 
and  influence.  Men  who  affect  to  despise  poli- 
ticians of  the  party  to  which  they  are  opposed 
are  nevertheless  flattered  by  any  attention  from 
them,  and  they  will  admit,  when  there  is  no 
campaign  forward,  that  in  spite  of  their  politics 
they  are  mighty  good  fellows.  And  they  are 
good  fellows;  they  have  to  be  to  retain  their 
hold  upon  their  constituents.  There  are  excep- 
tions to  the  rule  that  to  succeed  in  politics  one 
must  be  a  good  fellow,  a  folksy  person,  but  they 
are  few.  Cold,  crafty  men  who  are  not  "good 
mixers"  may  sometimes  gain  a  great  deal  of 
po\ver,  but  in  the  Western  provinces  they  make 
poor  candidates.  The  Folks  don't  like  'em ! 
Outside  of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania, 


186    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

where  much  the  same  phenomena  are  observa- 
ble, there  is  no  region  where  the  cards  are  so 
tirelessly  shuffled  as  in  the  Middle  Western  com- 
monwealths, particularly  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illi- 
nois, and  Kansas,  which  no  party  can  pretend  to 
carry  jauntily  in  its  pocket.  Men  enjoy  the 
game  because  of  its  excitement,  its  potentiali- 
ties of  preferment,  the  chance  that  a  few  votes 
delivered  in  the  right  quarter  may  upset  all 
calculations  and  send  a  lucky  candidate  for  gov- 
ernor on  his  way  to  the  Federal  Senate  or  even 
to  the  White  House.  And  in  country  towns 
where  there  isn't  much  to  do  outside  of  routine 
business  the  practice  of  politics  is  a  welcome 
"side-line."  There  is  a  vast  amount  of  fun  to 
be  got  out  of  it;  and  one  who  is  apt  at  the  game 
may  win  a  county  office  or  "go"  to  the  legisla- 
ture. 

To  be  summoned  from  a  dull  job  in  a  small 
town  to  a  conference  called  suddenly  and  mys- 
teriously at  the  capital,  to  be  invited  to  sit 
at  the  council-table  with  the  leaders,  greatly 
arouses  the  pride  and  vanity  of  men  to  whom, 
save  for  politics,  nothing  of  importance  ever 
happens.  There  are,  I  fancy,  few  American 
citizens  who  don't  hug  the  delusion  that  they 
have  political  "influence."  This  vanity  is  re- 
sponsible for  much  party  regularity.  To  have 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     187 

influence  a  man  must  keep  his  record  clear  of 
any  taint  of  independence,  or  else  he  must  be 
influential  enough  as  an  independent  to  win  the 
respect  of  both  sides,  and  this  latter  class  is  ex- 
ceedingly small.  At  some  time  in  his  life  every 
citizen  seeks  an  appointment  for  a  friend,  or 
finds  himself  interested  in  local  or  State  or  na- 
tional legislation.  It  is  in  the  mind  of  the  con- 
tributor to  a  campaign  fund  that  the  party  of 
his  allegiance  has  thus  a  concrete  expression  of 
his  fidelity,  and  if  he  "wants  something"  he 
has  opened  a  channel  through  which  to  make  a 
request  with  a  reasonable  degree  of  confidence 
that  it  will  not  be  ignored.  There  was  a  time 
when  it  was  safe  to  give  to  both  sides  impar- 
tially so  that  no  matter  who  won  the  battle 
the  contributor  would  have  established  an  obli- 
gation; but  this  practice  has  not  worked  so 
satisfactorily  since  the  institution  of  publicity 
for  campaign  assessments. 

It  is  only  immediately  after  an  election  that 
one  hears  criticisms  of  party  management  from 
within  a  party.  A  campaign  is  a  great  time- 
eater,  and  when  a  man  has  given  six  months 
or  possibly  a  year  of  hard  work  to  making  an 
aggressive  fighting  machine  of  his  party  he  is 
naturally  grieved  when  it  goes  down  in  defeat. 
In  the  first  few  weeks  following  the  election  of 


188    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

1910  Western  Republicans  complained  bitterly 
of  the  conduct  of  the  national  campaign.  Un- 
happily, no  amount  of  a  posteriori  reasoning 
can  ever  determine  whether,  if  certain  things 
had  been  handled  differently,  a  result  would 
have  been  changed.  If  Mr.  Hughes  had  not 
visited  California,  or,  venturing  into  that  com- 
monwealth, he  had  shaken  the  hand  of  Governor 
Hiram  Johnson,  or  if  he  had  remained  quietly 
on  his  veranda  at  home  and  made  no  speeches, 
would  he  have  been  elected  President?  Specu- 
lations of  this  kind  may  alleviate  the  poignancy 
of  defeat,  but  as  a  political  situation  is  rarely 
or  never  repeated  they  are  hardly  profitable. 

There  are  phases  of  political  psychology  that 
defy  analysis.  For  example,  in  doubtful  States 
there  are  shifting  moods  of  hope  and  despair 
which  are  wholly  unrelated  to  tangible  events 
and  not  reconcilable  with  "polls"  and  other  pre- 
election tests.  Obscure  influences  and  counter- 
currents  may  be  responsible,  but  often  the  poli- 
ticians do  not  attempt  to  account  for  these  alter- 
nations of  "feeling."  When,  without  warning, 
the  barometer  at  headquarters  begins  to  fall, 
even  the  messengers  and  stenographers  are 
affected.  The  gloom  may  last  for  a  day  or  two 
or  even  for  a  week;  then  the  chairman  issues  a 
statement  "claiming"  everything,  every  one 


MIDDLE   WEST  IN  POLITICS     189 

takes  heart  of  hope,  and  the  dread  spectre  of 
defeat  steals  away  to  the  committee-rooms  of 
the  opposition. 

An  interesting  species  are  the  oracles  whose 
views  are  sought  by  partisans  anxious  for  trust- 
worthy "tips."  These  "medicine-men"  may 
not  be  actively  engaged  in  politics,  or  only 
hangers-on  at  headquarters,  but  they  are  sup- 
posed to  be  endowed  with  the  gift  of  prophecy. 
I  know  several  such  seers  whose  views  on  no 
other  subject  are  entitled  to  the  slightest  con- 
sideration, and  yet  I  confess  to  a  certain  respect 
for  their  judgment  as  to  the  outcome  of  an  elec- 
tion. Late  in  the  fall  of  1916,  at  a  time  when  the 
result  was  most  uncertain,  a  friend  told  me  that 
he  wras  wagering  a  large  sum  on  Mr.  Wilson's 
success.  Asked  to  explain  his  confidence,  he 
said  he  wras  acting  on  the  advice  of  an  obscure 
citizen,  whom  he  named,  who  always  "guessed 
right."  This  prophet's  reasoning  was  wholly 
by  inspiration;  he  had  a  "hunch."  State  and 
county  committee-rooms  are  infested  with 
elderly  men  who  commune  among  themselves 
as  to  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things  and  battles 
long  ago,  and  wait  for  a  chance  to  whisper  some 
rumor  into  the  ear  of  a  person  of  importance. 
Their  presence  and  their  misinformation  add 
little  to  the  joy  of  the  engrossed,  harassed  strate- 


190    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

gists,  who  spend  much  time  dodging  them,  but 
appoint  a  subordinate  of  proved  patience  to 
listen  to  their  stories. 

To  be  successful  a  State  chairman  must 
possess  a  genius  for  organization  and  adminis- 
tration, and  a  capacity  for  quick  decision  and 
action.  While  he  must  make  no  mistakes  him- 
self, it  is  his  business  to  correct  the  blunders  of 
his  lieutenants  and  turn  to  good  account  the 
errors  of  his  adversary.  He  must  know  how 
and  where  to  get  money,  and  how  to  use  it  to 
the  best  advantage.  There  are  always  local 
conditions  in  his  territory  that  require  judi- 
cious handling,  and  he  must  deal  with  these 
personally  or  send  just  the  right  man  to  smooth 
them  out.  Harmony  is  the  great  watchword, 
and  such  schisms  as  that  of  the  Sound  Money 
Democrats  in  1896,  the  Progressive  split  of 
1912,  and  the  frequent  anti-organization  fights 
that  are  a  part  of  the  great  game  leave  much 
harsh  jangling  behind. 

The  West  first  kicked  up  its  heels  in  a  na- 
tional campaign  in  the  contest  of  1840,  when 
William  Henry  Harrison,  a  native  of  Virginia 
who  had  won  renown  as  a  soldier  in  the  Ohio 
Valley  and  served  as  governor  of  the  Northwest 
Territory,  was  the  Whig  candidate.  The  cam- 
paign was  flavored  with  hard  cider  and  keyed 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     191 

to  the  melody  of  "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too." 
The  log  cabin,  with  a  raccoon  on  the  roof  or 
with  a  pelt  of  the  species  nailed  to  the  outer 
wall,  and  a  cider-barrel  seductively  displayed 
in  the  foreground,  were  popular  party  symbols. 
The  rollicking  campaign  songs  of  1840  reflect 
not  only  the  cheery  pioneer  spirit  but  the  bitter- 
ness of  the  contest  between  Van  Buren  and 
Harrison.  One  of  the  most  popular  ballads  was 
a  buckeye-cabin  song  sung  to  the  tune  of  "The 
Blue  Bells  of  Scotland": 

"Oh,  how,  tell  me  how  does  your  buckeye  cabin  go  ? 
Oh,  how,  tell  me  how  does  your  buckeye  cabin  go  ? 
It  goes  against  the  spoilsman,  for  well  its  builders  know 
It  was  Harrison  who  fought  for  the  cabins  long  ago. 

Oh,  who  fell  before  him  in  battle,  tell  me  who  ? 
Oh,  who  fell  before  him  in  battle,  tell  me  who  ? 
He  drove  the  savage  legions  and  British  armies,  too, 
At  the  Rapids  and  the  Thames  and  old  Tippecanoe. 

Oh,  what,  tell  me  what  will  little  Martin  do  ? 

Oh,  what,  then,  what  will  little  Martin  do  ? 

He'll  follow  the  footsteps  of  Price  and  Swartout,  too, 

While  the  log  cabins  ring  again  with  Tippecanoe  !" 

The  spirit  of  the  '40's  pervaded  Western 
politics  for  many  years  after  that  strenuous 
campaign.  Men  who  had  voted  for  "Tippe- 
canoe" Harrison  were  pointed  out  as  citizens 
of  unusual  worth  and  dignity  in  my  youth ;  and 


192    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

organizations  of  these  veterans  were  still  in  exist- 
ence and  attentive  to  politics  when  Harrison's 
grandson  was  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 

I  find  myself  referring  frequently  to  the  con- 
tinuing influence  of  the  Civil  War  in  the  social 
and  political  life  of  these  Western  States.  The 
"soldier  vote"  was  long  to  be  reckoned  with, 
and  it  was  not  until  Mr.  Cleveland  brought  a 
new  spirit  into  our  politics  that  the  war  between 
the  States  began  to  fade  as  a  political  factor;  and 
even  then  we  were  assured  that  if  the  Democrats 
succeeded  they  would  pension  Confederate  sol- 
diers and  redeem  the  Confederate  bonds.  There 
were  a  good  many  of  us  in  these  border  States 
wrho,  having  been  born  of  soldier  fathers,  and 
with  Whig  and  Republican  antecedents,  began 
to  resent  the  continued  emphasis  of  the  war  in 
every  campaign;  and  I  look  back  upon  Mr. 
Cleveland's  rise  as  of  very  great  importance  in 
that  he  was  a  messenger  of  new  and  attractive 
ideals  of  public  service  that  appealed  strongly 
to  young  men.  But  my  political  apostasy  (I 
speak  of  my  own  case  because  it  is  in  some 
sense  typical)  was  attended  with  no  diminution 
of  reverence  for  that  great  citizen  army  that 
defended  and  saved  the  Union.  The  annual 
gatherings  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic 
have  grown  pathetically  smaller,  but  this  or- 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     193 

ganization  is  not  a  negligible  expression  of 
American  democracy.  The  writing  of  these 
pages  has  been  interrupted  constantly  by  bugle- 
calls  floating  in  from  the  street,  by  the  cheers 
of  crowds  wishing  Godspeed  to  our  young  army 
in  its  high  adventure  beyond  the  Atlantic,  and 
at  the  moment,  by  stirring  news  of  American 
valor  and  success  in  France.  In  my  boyhood 
I  viewed  with  awe  and  admiration  the  veterans 
of  '61-' 65  and  my  patriotism  was  deeply  in- 
fluenced by  the  atmosphere  in  which  I  was 
born,  by  acquaintance  with  my  father's  com- 
rades, and  quickened  through  my  formative 
years  by  attendance  at  encampments  of  the 
Grand  Army  of  the  Republic  and  cheery 
"camp-fires"  in  the  hall  of  George  H.  Thomas 
Post,  Indianapolis,  where  privates  and  generals 
met  for  story-telling  and  the  singing  of  war- 
songs.  The  honor  which  it  was  part  of  my 
education  should  be  accorded  those  men  will,  I 
reflect,  soon  be  the  portion  of  their  grand- 
sons, the  men  of  1917-18,  and  we  shall  have 
very  likely  a  new  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic, 
with  the  difference  that  the  descendants  of  men 
who  fought  under  Grant  and  Sherman  will  meet 
at  peaceful  "camp-fires"  with  grandsons  of  the 
soldiers  of  Lee  and  Jackson,  quite  unconscious 
that  this  was  ever  other  than  a  united  nation. 


194    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

II 

The  West  has  never  lost  its  early  admiration 
for  oratory,  whether  from  the  hustings,  the  pul- 
pit, or  the  lecture-platform.  Many  of  the 
pioneer  preachers  of  the  Ohio  valley  were  ora- 
tors of  distinguished  ability,  and  their  frequent 
joint  debates  on  such  subjects  as  predestination 
and  baptism  drew  great  audiences  from  the 
countryside.  Both  religious  and  political  meet- 
ings were  held  preferably  out  of  doors  to  ac- 
commodate the  crowds  that  collected  from  the 
far-scattered  farms.  A  strong  voice,  a  con- 
fident manner,  and  matter  so  composed  as  to 
hold  the  attention  of  an  audience  which  would 
not  hesitate  to  disperse  if  it  lost  interest  were 
prerequisites  of  the  successful  speaker.  West- 
ern chronicles  lay  great  stress  upon  the  ora- 
torical powers  of  both  ministers  and  politicians. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who  held  a  pastorate  at 
Indianapolis  (1839-47),  was  already  famed  as 
an  eloquent  preacher  before  he  moved  to 
Brooklyn.  Not  long  ago  I  heard  a  number  of 
distinguished  politicians  discussing  American 
oratory.  Some  one  mentioned  the  addresses 
delivered  by  Beecher  in  England  during  the 
Civil  War,  and  there  was  general  agreement 
that  one  of  these,  the  Liverpool  speech,  was 


fe/S^§^X/m^.,»L     ^ffiiVkSS       "J 


There  is  a  death-watch  that  occupies  front  seats  at  every  political 
meeting. 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     195 

probably  the  greatest  of  American  orations  —  a 
sweeping  statement,  but  its  irresistible  logic 
and  a  sense  of  the  hostile  atmosphere  in  which 
it  was  spoken  may  still  be  felt  in  the  printed 
page. 

The  tradition  of  Lincoln's  power  as  an  ora- 
tor is  well  fortified  by  the  great  company  of 
contemporaries  who  wrote  of  him,  as  well  as  by 
the  text  of  his  speeches,  which  still  vibrate  with 
the  nobility,  the  restrained  strength,  with  wrhich 
he  addressed  himself  to  mighty  events.  Neither 
before  nor  since  his  day  has  the  West  spoken 
to  the  East  with  anything  approaching  the 
majesty  of  his  Cooper  Union  speech.  It  is 
certainly  a  far  cry  from  that  lofty  utterance  to 
Mr.  Bryan's  defiant  cross-of-gold  challenge  of 
1896. 

The  Westerner  will  listen  attentively  to  a 
man  he  despises  and  has  no  intention  of  voting 
for,  if  he  speaks  well;  but  the  standards  are 
high.  There  is  a  death-watch  that  occupies 
front  seats  at  every  political  meeting,  composed 
of  veterans  wrho  compare  all  later  performances 
with  some  speech  they  heard  Garfield  or  "Dan" 
Voorhees,  Oliver  P.  Morton  or  John  J.  Ingalls 
deliver  before  the  orator  spouting  on  the  plat- 
form was  born.  Nearly  all  the  national  con- 
ventions held  in  the  WTest  have  been  marked 


196    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

by  memorable  oratory.  Colonel  Robert  G. 
Ingersoll's  speech  nominating  Elaine  at  the  Re- 
publican convention  of  187G  held  at  Cincinnati 
(how  faint  that  old  battle-cry  has  become: 
" Elaine,  Elaine,  Elaine  of  Maine!")  is  often 
cited  as  one  of  the  great  American  orations. 
"He  swayed  and  moved  and  impelled  and  re- 
strained and  wrorked  in  all  ways  with  the  mass 
before  him,"  says  the  Chicago  Times  report, 
"as  if  he  possessed  some  key  to  the  innermost 
mechanism  that  moves  the  human  heart,  and 
when  he  finished,  his  fine,  frank  face  as  calm  as 
when  he  began,  the  overwrought  thousands 
sank  back  in  an  exhaustion  of  unspeakable 
wonder  and  delight." 

Even  making  allowance  for  the  reporter's 
exuberance,  this  must  have  been  a  moving  ut- 
terance, with  its  dramatic  close: 

"Like  an  armed  warrior,  like  a  plumed 
knight,  James  G.  Elaine  marched  down  the 
halls  of  the  American  Congress  and  threw  his 
shining  lance  full  and  fair  against  the  brazen 
foreheads  of  the  defamers  of  his  country  and 
the  maligners  of  his  honor.  For  the  Republican 
party  to  desert  this  gallant  leader  now  is  as 
though  an  army  should  desert  their  gallant 
general  upon  the  field  of  battle.  .  .  .  Gentle- 
men of  the  convention,  in  the  name  of  the  great 


MIDDLE   WEST  IN  POLITICS     197 

republic,  the  only  republic  that  ever  existed 
upon  this  earth ;  in  the  name  of  all  her  defenders 
and  of  all  her  supporters;  in  the  name  of  all  her 
soldiers  dead  upon  the  field  of  battle,  and  in  the 
name  of  those  who  perished  in  the  skeleton 
clutch  of  famine  at  Andersonville  and  Libby, 
whose  sufferings  he  so  vividly  remembers,  Illi- 
nois, Illinois  nominates  for  the  next  President 
of  this  country  that  prince  of  parliamentarians, 
that  leader  of  leaders  —  James  G.  Blaine." 

In  the  fall  of  the  same  year  Ingersoll  delivered 
at  Indianapolis  an  address  to  war  veterans  that 
is  still  cited  for  its  peroration  beginning:  "The 
past  rises  before  me  like  a  dream." 

The  political  barbecue,  common  in  pioneer 
days,  is  about  extinct,  though  a  few  such  gather- 
ings were  reported  in  the  older  States  of  the 
Middle  West  in  the  last  campaign.  These  func- 
tions, in  the  day  of  poor  roads  and  few  settle- 
ments, were  a  means  of  luring  voters  to  a  meet- 
ing with  the  promise  of  free  food;  it  was  only 
by  such  heroic  feats  of  cookery  as  the  broiling 
of  a  whole  beef  in  a  pit  of  coals  that  a  crowd 
could  be  fed.  The  meat  was  likely  to  be  either 
badly  burnt,  or  raw,  but  the  crowds  were  not 
fastidious,  and  swigs  of  whiskey  made  it  more 
palatable.  Those  were  days  of  plain  speech 
and  hard  hitting,  and  on  such  occasions  orators 


198    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

were  expected  to  "cut  loose"  and  flay  the  enemy 
unsparingly. 

Speakers  of  the  rabble-rouser  type  have 
passed  out,  though  there  are  still  orators  who 
proceed  to  "shell  the  woods"  and  "burn  the 
grass"  in  the  old  style  in  country  districts 
where  they  are  not  in  danger  of  being  reported. 
This,  however,  is  full  of  peril,  as  the  farmer's 
credulity  is  not  so  easily  played  upon  as  in  the 
old  days  before  the  R.  F.  D.  box  was  planted  at 
his  gate.  The  farmer  is  the  shrewdest,  the  most 
difficult,  of  auditors.  He  is  little  given  to  ap- 
plause, but  listens  meditatively,  and  is  not 
easily  to  be  betrayed  into  demonstrations  of 
approval.  The  orator's  chance  of  scoring  a 
hit  before  an  audience  of  country  folk  depends 
on  his  ability  to  state  his  case  with  an  appear- 
ance of  fairness  and  to  sustain  it  with  argu- 
ments presented  in  simple,  picturesque  phrase- 
ology. Nothing  could  be  less  calculated  to 
win  the  farmer's  franchise  than  any  attempt  to 
"play  down"  to  him.  In  old  times  the  city 
candidate  sometimes  donned  his  fishing-clothes 
before  venturing  into  country  districts,  but  some 
of  the  most  engaging  demagogues  the  West  has 
known  appeared  always  in  their  finest  raiment. 

There  has  always  been  a  considerable  sprin- 
kling of  women  at  big  Indiana  rallies  and  also  at 


. 


Thr  Political  Barbecue. 


MIDDLE   WEST  IN  POLITICS     199 

State  conventions,  as  far  back  as  my  memory 
runs;  but  women,  I  am  advised,  were  rarely  in 
evidence  at  political  meetings  in  the  West 
until  Civil  War  times.  The  number  who  at- 
tended meetings  in  1916  was  notably  large, 
even  in  States  that  have  not  yet  granted  general 
suffrage.  They  are  most  satisfactory  auditors, 
quick  to  catch  points  and  eagerly  responsive 
with  applause.  The  West  has  many  women 
who  speak  exceedingly  well,  and  the  number  is 
steadily  growing.  I  have  never  heard  heckling 
so  cleverly  parried  as  by  a  young  woman  who 
spoke  on  a  Chicago  street  corner,  during  the 
sessions  of  the  last  Republican  convention,  to 
a  crowd  of  men  bent  upon  annoying  her.  She 
was  unfailingly  good-humored,  and  her  retorts, 
delivered  with  the  utmost  good  nature,  gradu- 
ally won  the  sympathy  of  her  hearers. 

The  making  of  political  speeches  is  exhaust- 
ing labor,  and  only  the  possessor  of  great  bodily 
vigor  can  make  a  long  tour  without  a  serious 
drain  upon  his  physical  and  nervous  energy. 
Mr.  Bryan  used  to  refer  with  delight  to  the 
manner  in  which  Republicans  he  met,  unable 
to  pay  him  any  other  compliment,  expressed 
their  admiration  for  his  magnificent  constitu- 
tion, which  made  it  possible  for  him  to  speak 
so  constantly  without  injury  to  his  health. 


200    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

The  fatiguing  journeys,  the  enforced  adjust- 
ment to  the  crowds  of  varying  size  in  circum- 
stances never  twice  alike,  the  handshaking  and 
the  conferences  with  local  committees  to  which 
prominent  speakers  must  submit  make  speak- 
ing-tours anything  but  the  triumphal  excursions 
they  appear  to  be  to  the  cheering  audiences. 
The  weary  orator  arrives  at  a  to\vn  to  find 
that  instead  of  snatching  an  hour's  rest  he  must 
yield  to  the  importunity  of  a  committee  in- 
trusted with  the  responsibility  of  showing  him 
the  sights  of  the  city,  with  probably  a  few  brief 
speeches  at  factories;  and  after  a  dinner,  where 
he  will  very  likely  be  called  upon  to  say  "just 
a  few  wrords,"  he  must  ride  in  a  procession 
through  the  chill  night  before  he  addresses  the 
big  meeting.  One  of  the  most  successful  of 
Western  campaigners  is  Thomas  R.  Marshall, 
of  Indiana,  twice  Mr.  Wilson's  running  mate 
on  the  presidential  ticket.  In  1908  Mr.  Mar- 
shall was  the  Democratic  candidate  for  governor 
and  spoke  in  every  county  in  the  State,  avoiding 
the  usual  partisan  appeals,  but  preaching  a 
political  gospel  of  good  cheer,  with  the  result 
that  he  was  elected  by  a  plurality  of  14,453, 
while  Mr.  Taft  won  the  State's  electoral  vote 
by  a  plurality  of  10,731.  Mr.  Marshall  enjoys 
a  wide  reputation  as  a  story-teller,  both  for  the 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     201 

humor  of  his  narratives  and  the  art  be  brings 
to  their  recital. 

A  few  dashes  of  local  color  assist  in  establish- 
ing the  visiting  orator  on  terms  of  good-fellow- 
ship with  his  audience.  He  will  inform  himself 
as  to  the  number  of  broom-handles  or  refriger- 
ators produced  annually  in  the  town,  or  the 
amount  of  barley  and  buckwheat  that  last  year 
rewarded  the  toil  of  the  noble  husbandmen  of 
the  county.  It  is  equally  important  for  him  to 
take  counsel  of  the  local  chairman  as  to  things 
to  avoid^  for  there  are  sore  spots  in  many  dis- 
tricts which  must  be  let  alone  or  touched  with  a 
healing  hand.  The  tyro  who  prepares  a  speech 
with  the  idea  of  giving  it  through  a  considerable 
territory  finds  quickly  that  the  sooner  he  for- 
gets his  manuscript  the  better,  so  many  are  the 
concessions  he  must  make  to  local  conditions. 

In  the  campaign  of  19 1C  the  Democrats  made 
strenuous  efforts  to  win  the  Progressive  vote. 
Energetic  county  chairmen  would  lure  as  many 
Progressives  as  possible  to  the  front  seats  at  all 
meetings  that  they  might  learn  of  the  admira- 
tion in  \vhich  they  were  held  by  forward-looking 
Democrats  —  the  bond  of  sympathy,  the  com- 
mon ideals,  that  animated  honest  Democrats 
and  their  brothers,  those  patriotic  citizens  who, 
long  weary  of  Republican  indifference  to  the 


202    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

rights  of  freemen,  had  broken  the  ties  of  a  life- 
time to  assert  their  independence.  Democratic 
orators,  with  the  Progressives  in  mind,  fre- 
quently apostrophized  Lincoln,  that  they  might 
the  better  contrast  the  vigorous,  healthy  Re- 
publicanism of  the  '60's  with  the  corrupt, 
odious  thing  the  Republican  party  had  become. 
This,  of  course,  had  to  be  done  carefully,  so  that 
the  Progressive  would  not  experience  twinges  of 
homesickness  for  his  old  stamping-ground. 

There  is  agreement  among  political  managers 
as  to  the  doubtful  value  of  the  "  monster  meet- 
ings" that  are  held  in  large  centres.  With 
plenty  of  money  to  spend  and  a  thorough  or- 
ganization, it  is  always  possible  to  "pull  off" 
a  big  demonstration.  Word  passed  to  ward 
and  precinct  committeemen  will  collect  a  vast 
crowd  for  a  parade  adorned  with  fireworks. 
The  size  and  enthusiasm  of  these  crowds  is 
never  truly  significant  of  party  strength.  One 
such  crowd  looks  very  much  like  another,  and  I 
am  betraying  no  confidence  in  saying  that  its 
units  are  often  drawn  from  the  same  sources. 
The  participants  in  a  procession  rarely  hear  the 
speeches  at  the  meeting  of  which  they  are  the 
advertisement.  When  they  reach  the  hall  it 
is  usually  filled  and  their  further  function  is  to 
march  down  the  aisles  with  bands  and  drum- 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     203 

corps  to  put  the  crowd  in  humor  for  the  speeches. 
Frequently  some  belated  phalanx  will  noisily 
intrude  after  the  orator  has  been  introduced, 
and  he  must  smile  and  let  it  be  seen  that  he 
understands  perfectly  that  the  interruption  is 
due  to  the  irrepressible  enthusiasm  of  the  in- 
telligent voters  of  the  grand  old  blank  district 
that  has  never  failed  to  support  the  principles 
of  the  grand  old  blank  party. 

The  most  satisfactory  meetings  are  small 
ones,  in  country  districts,  where  one  or  two  hun- 
dred people  of  all  parties  gather,  drawn  by  an 
honest  curiosity  as  to  the  issues.  Such  meetings 
impose  embarrassments  upon  the  speaker,  who 
must  accommodate  manner  and  matter  to  au- 
ditors disconcertingly  close  at  hand,  of  whose 
reaction  to  his  talk  he  is  perfectly  conscious. 
In  an  "all-day"  meeting,  held  usually  in  groves 
that  serve  as  rural  social  centres,  the  farmers 
remain  in  their  automobiles  drawn  into  line 
before  the  speakers'  stand,  and  listen  quietly 
to  the  programme  arranged  by  the  county  chair- 
man. Sometimes  several  orators  are  provided 
for  the  day;  Republicans  may  take  the  morning, 
the  Democrats  the  afternoon.  Here,  with  the 
audience  sitting  as  a  jury,  we  have  one  of  the 
processes  of  democracy  reduced  to  its  simplest 
terms. 


204    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

The  West  is  attracted  by  statesmen  who  are 
"human,"  who  impress  themselves  upon  the 
Folks  by  their  amiability  and  good-fellowship. 
Benjamin  Harrison  was  recognized  as  one  of 
the  ablest  lawyers  of  the  bar  of  his  day,  but  he 
was  never  a  popular  hero  and  his  defeat  for  re- 
election was  attributable  in  large  degree  to  his 
lack  of  those  qualities  that  constitute  what  I 
have  called  "folksiness."  In  the  campaign 
of  1888  General  Harrison  suffered  much  from 
the  charge  that  he  was  an  aristocrat,  and  at- 
tention was  frequently  called  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  the  grandson  of  a  President.  Among 
other  cartoons  of  the  period  there  was  one  that 
represented  Harrison  as  a  pigmy  standing  in 
the  shadow  of  his  grandfather's  tall  hat.  This 
was  probably  remembered  by  an  Indiana  politi- 
cian who  called  at  the  White  House  repeatedly 
without  being  able  to  see  the  President.  After 
several  fruitless  visits  the  secretary  said  to  him 
one  day:  ''The  President  cannot  be  seen." 
"My  God!"  exclaimed  the  enraged  office- 
seeker,  "has  he  grown  as  small  as  that  ?  " 

Probably  no  President  has  ever  enjoyed 
greater  personal  popularity  than  Mr.  McKin- 
ley.  He  would  perform  an  act  of  kindness  with 
a  graciousness  that  doubled  its  value  and  he 
could  refuse  a  favor  without  making  an  enemy. 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     205 

Former  Governor  Glynn  of  New  York  told  me 
not  long  ago  an  incident  illuminative  of  the 
qualities  that  endeared  Mr.  McKinley  to  his 
devoted  followers.  Soon  after  his  inaugura- 
tion a  Democratic  congressman  from  an  East- 
ern State  delivered  in  the  House  a  speech  filled 
with  the  bitterest  abuse  of  the  President.  A 
little  later  this  member's  wife,  not  realizing 
that  a  savage  attack  of  this  sort  would  naturally 
make  its  author  persona  non  grata  at  the  White 
House,  expressed  a  wish  to  take  her  young 
children  to  call  on  the  President.  The  young- 
sters were  insistent  in  their  demand  to  make  the 
visit  and  would  not  be  denied.  The  offending 
representative  confessed  his  embarrassment  to 
Mr.  Glynn,  a  Democratic  colleague,  who  said 
he'd  "feel  out"  the  President.  Mr.  McKinley, 
declaring  at  once  with  the  utmost  good  humor 
that  he  would  be  delighted  to  receive  the  lady 
and  her  children,  named  a  day  and  met  them 
with  the  greatest  cordiality.  He  planted  the 
baby  on  his  desk  to  play,  put  them  all  at  ease, 
and  as  they  left  distributed  among  them  a  huge 
bouquet  of  carnations  that  he  had  ordered 
specially  from  the  conservatory.  In  this  con- 
nection I  am  reminded  of  a  story  of  Thomas  B. 
Reed,  who  once  asked  President  Harrison  to 
appoint  a  certain  constituent  collector  at  Port- 


206    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

land.  The  appointment  went  to  another  candi- 
date for  the  office,  and  when  one  of  Reed's 
friends  twitted  him  about  his  lack  of  influence 
he  remarked:  "There  are  only  two  men  in  the 
whole  State  of  Maine  who  hate  me:  one  of 
them  I  landed  in  the  penitentiary,  and  the  other 
one  Harrison  has  appointed  collector  of  the  port 
in  my  town !" 


Ill 

Statesmen  of  the  "picturesque"  school,  who 
attracted  attention  by  their  scorn  of  conven- 
tions, or  their  raciness  of  speech,  or  for  some 
obsession  aired  on  every  occasion,  are  well-nigh 
out  of  the  picture.  The  West  is  not  Without  its 
sensitiveness,  and  it  has  found  that  a  sockless 
congressman,  or  one  who  makes  himself  ridicu- 
lous by  advocating  foolish  measures,  reflects 
upon  the  intelligence  of  his  constituents  or  upon 
their  sense  of  humor,  and  if  there  is  anything  the 
West  prides  itself  upon  it  is  its  humor.  We  are 
seeing  fewer  statesmen  of  the  type  so  blithely 
represented  by  Mr.  Cannon,  who  enjoy  in 
marked  degree  the  affections  of  their  constit- 
uents; who  are  kindly  uncles  to  an  entire  dis- 
trict, not  to  be  displaced,  no  matter  what  their 
shortcomings,  without  genuine  grief.  One  is 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     207 

tempted  far  afield  in  pursuit  of  the  elements  of 
popularity,  of  which  the  West  offers  abundant 
material  for  analysis.  "Dan"  Voorhees,  "the 
tall  sycamore  of  the  Wabash,"  was  prominent 
in  Indiana  politics  for  many  years,  and  his  fine 
figure,  his  oratorical  gifts,  his  sympathetic 
nature  and  reputation  for  generosity  endeared 
him  to  many  who  had  no  patience  with  his 
politics.  He  was  so  effective  as  an  advocate 
in  criminal  cases  that  the  Indiana  law  giving 
defendants  the  final  appeal  was  changed  so  that 
the  State  might  counteract  the  influence  of 
his  familiar  speech,  adjustable  to  any  case, 
which  played  upon  the  sympathy  and  magna- 
nimity of  the  jurors.  Allen  G.  Thurman,  of 
Ohio,  a  man  of  higher  intellectual  gifts,  was 
similarly  enshrined  in  the  hearts  of  his  con- 
stituency. His  bandanna  was  for  years  the 
symbol  of  Buckeye  democracy,  much  as  "blue 
jeans"  expressed  the  rugged  simplicity  of  the 
Hoosier  democracy  when,  in  1876,  the  apparel 
of  James  D.  Williams,  unwisely  ridiculed  by  the 
Republicans,  contributed  to  his  election  to  the 
governorship  over  General  Harrison,  the  "kid- 
glove"  candidate.  Kansas  was  much  in  evi- 
dence in  those  years  when  it  was  so  ably  repre- 
sented in  the  Senate  by  the  brilliant  John  J. 
Ingalls.  Ingalls's  oratory  was  enriched  by  a 


208    THE   VALLEY   OF   DEMOCRACY 

fine  scholarship  and  enlivened  by  a  rare  gift  of 
humor  and  a  biting  sarcasm.  Once  when  a 
Pennsylvania  colleague  attacked  Kansas  Ingalls 
delivered  a  slashing  reply.  "Mr.  President," 
he  said,  "Pennsylvania  has  produced  but  two 
great  men:  Benjamin  Franklin,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  Albert  Gallatin,  of  Switzerland." 
On  another  occasion  Voorhees  of  the  blond 
mane  aroused  Ingalls's  ire  and  the  Kansan 
excoriated  the  Hoosier  in  a  characteristic  de- 
liverance, an  incident  thus  neatly  epitomized 
by  Eugene  F.  Ware,  ("Ironquill"),  a  Kansas 
poet: 

"Cyclone  dense, 
Lurid  air, 
Wabash  hair, 
Hide  on  fence." 

Nothing  is  better  calculated  to  encourage 
humility  in  young  men  about  to  enter  upon  a 
political  career  than  a  study  of  the  roster  of 
Congress  for  years  only  lightly  veiled  in  "the 
pathos  of  distance."  Among  United  States 
senators  from  the  Middle  West  in  1803-9  were 
Lyman  Trumbull,  Richard  J.  Oglesby,  and  Rich- 
ard Yates,  of  Illinois;  Henry  S.  Lane,  Oliver  P. 
Morton,  and  Thomas  A.  Ilendricks,  of  Indiana; 
James  Harlan  and  Samuel  J.  Kirkwood,  of 
Iowa;  Samuel  C.  Pomeroy  and  James  II.  Lane, 


MIDDLE   WEST  IN  POLITICS     209 

of  Kansas;  Zachariah  Chandler  and  Jacob  M. 
Howard,  of  Michigan;  Alexander  Ramsey  and 
Daniel  S.  Norton,  of  Minnesota;  Benjamin  F. 
Wade  and  John  Sherman,  of  Ohio. 

In  the  lower  house  sat  Elihu  B.  Washburne, 
Owen  Lovejoy,  and  William  R.  Morrison,  of 
Illinois;  Schuyler  Colfax,  George  W.  Julian, 
Daniel  W.  Voorhees,  William  S.  Holman,  and 
Godlove  S.  Orth,  of  Indiana;  William  B.  Alli- 
son, Josiah  B.  Grinnell,  John  A.  Kasson,  and 
James  F.  Wilson,  of  Iowa;  James  A.  Garfield, 
Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  and  Robert  C.  Schenck, 
of  Ohio.  In  the  same  group  of  States  in  the 
'80's  we  find  David  Davis,  John  A.  Logan, 
Joseph  E.  McDonald,  Benjamin  Harrison, 
Thomas  W.  Ferry,  Henry  P.  Baldwin,  William 
Windom,  Samuel  J.  R.  McMillan,  Algernon  S. 
Paddock,  Alvin  Saunders,  M.  II.  Carpenter, 
John  J.  Ingalls,  and  Preston  B.  Plumb,  all 
senators  in  Congress.  In  this  same  period  the 
Ohio  delegation  in  the  lower  house  included 
Benjamin  Butterworth,  A.  J.  Warner,  Thomas 
Ewing,  Charles  Foster,  Frank  H.  Hurd,  J.  War- 
ren Keifer,  and  William  McKinley. 

Ho\v  many  students  in  the  high  schools  and 
colleges  of  these  States  would  recognize  any 
considerable  number  of  these  names  or  have  any 
idea  of  the  nature  of  the  public  service  these 


210    THE   VALLEY  OF   DEMOCRACY 

men  performed?  To  be  sure,  three  representa- 
tives in  Congress  from  Ohio  in  the  years  indi- 
cated, and  one  senator  from  Indiana,  reached 
the  White  House;  but  at  least  two-thirds  of 
the  others  enjoyed  a  wide  reputation,  either 
as  politicians  or  statesmen  or  as  both.  In  the 
years  preceding  the  Civil  War  the  West  cer- 
tainly did  not  lack  leadership,  nor  did  all  who 
rendered  valuable  service  attain  conspicuous 
place.  For  example,  George  W.  Julian,  an 
ardent  foe  of  slavery,  a  member  of  Congress, 
and  in  1852  a  candidate  for  Vice-President  on 
the  Free  Soil  ticket,  was  a  political  idealist,  in- 
dependent and  courageous,  and  with  the  ability 
to  express  his  opinions  tersely  and  effectively. 

It  is  always  hazardous  to  compare  the  states- 
men of  one  period  with  those  of  another,  and 
veteran  observers  whose  judgments  must  be 
treated  with  respect  insist  that  the  men  I  have 
mentioned  Were  not  popularly  regarded  in  their 
day  as  the  possessors  of  unusual  abilities. 
Most  of  these  men  were  prominent  in  my  youth, 
and  in  some  cases  were  still  important  factors 
when  I  attained  my  majority,  and  somehow 
they  seem  to  "mass"  as  their  successors  do  not. 
The  fierce  passions  aroused  in  the  Middle  West 
by  the  slavery  issue  undoubtedly  brought  into 
the  political  arena  men  who  in  calmer  times 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     211 

would  have  remained  contentedly  in  private 
life.  The  restriction  of  slavery  and  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union  were  concrete  issues  that 
awakened  a  moral  fervor  not  since  apparent  in 
our  politics.  Groups  of  people  are  constantly 
at  work  in  the  social  field,  to  improve  municipal 
government,  or  to  place  State  politics  upon  a 
higher  plane;  but  these  movements  occasion 
only  slight  tremors  in  contrast  with  the  quaking 
of  the  earth  through  the  free-soil  agitation, 
Civil  War,  and  reconstruction. 

The  men  I  have  mentioned  were,  generally 
speaking,  poor  men,  and  the  next  generation 
found  it  much  more  comfortable  and  profitable 
to  practise  law  or  engage  in  business  than  to 
enter  politics.  I  am  grieved  by  my  inability 
to  offer  substantial  proof  that  ideals  of  public 
service  in  the  Western  provinces  are  higher  than 
they  were  fifty  or  twenty  years  ago.  I  record 
my  opinion  that  they  are  not,  and  that  we  are 
less  ably  served  in  the  Congress  than  formerly, 
frankly  to  invite  criticism;  for  these  times  call 
for  a  great  searching  for  the  weaknesses  of  de- 
mocracy and,  if  the  best  talent  is  not  finding 
its  way  into  the  lawmaking,  administrative,  and 
judicial  branches  of  our  State  and  federal  gov- 
ernments, an  obligation  rests  upon  every  citizen 
to  find  the  reason  and  supply  the  remedy. 


THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

No  Westerner  who  is  devoted  to  the  best  in- 
terests of  his  country  will  encourage  the  belief 
that  there  is  any  real  hostility  between  East 
and  West,  or  that  the  West  is  incapable  of  view- 
ing social  and  political  movements  in  the  light 
of  reason  and  experience.  It  stood  steadfastly 
against  the  extension  of  slavery  and  for  the 
Union  through  years  of  fiery  trial,  and  its 
leaders  expressed  the  national  thought  and  held 
the  lines  firm  against  opposition,  concealed  and 
open,  that  was  kept  down  only  by  ceaseless 
vigilance.  Even  in  times  of  financial  stress  it 
refused  to  hearken  to  the  cry  of  the  demagogue, 
and  Greenbackism  died,  just  as  later  Populism 
died.  More  significant  was  the  failure  of  Mr. 
BrjTan  to  win  the  support  of  the  West  that  was 
essential  to  his  success  in  three  campaigns.  We 
may  say  that  it  was  a  narrow  escape,  and  that 
the  Wre4st  was  responsible  for  a  serious  menace 
and  a  peril  not  too  easily  averted,  but  Mr. 
Bryan  precipitated  a  storm  that  was  bound  to 
break  and  that  left  the  air  clearer.  He  "threw 
a  scare"  into  the  country  just  when  it  needed 
to  be  aroused,  and  some  of  his  admonitions  have 
borne  good  fruit  on  soil  least  friendly  to  him. 

The  West  likes  to  be  "preached  at,"  and  it 
admires  a  courageous  evangelist  even  when  it 
declines  his  invitation  to  the  mourners'  bench. 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     213 

The  West  liked  and  still  likes  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
and  no  other  American  can  so  instantly  gain  the 
ear  of  the  West  as  he.  In  my  pilgrimages  of 
the  past  year  nothing  has  been  more  surprising 
than  the  change  of  tone  with  reference  to  the 
former  President  among  Western  Republicans, 
who  declared  in  1912  and  reiterated  in  1916  that 
never,  never  again  would  they  countenance  him. 


IV 

One  may  find  in  the  Mississippi  valley,  as  in 
the  Connecticut  valley  or  anywhere  else  in 
America,  just  about  what  one  wishes  to  find. 
A  New  England  correspondent  complains  with 
some  bitterness  of  the  political  conservatism  he 
encountered  in  a  journey  through  the  West; 
he  had  expected  to  find  radicalism  everywhere 
rampant,  and  was  disappointed  that  he  was 
unable  to  substantiate  his  preconceived  impres- 
sion by  actual  contacts  with  the  people. 

If  I  may  delicately  suggest  the  point  without 
making  too  great  a  concession,  the  West  is  really 
quite  human.  It  has  its  own  "slant"  -its 
tastes  and  preferences  that  differ  in  ways  from 
those  of  the  East,  the  South,  or  the  farther 
West;  and  radicals  are  distributed  through  the 
corn  belt  in  about  the  same  proportion  as  else- 


214    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

where.  The  bread-and-butter  Western  Folks 
are  pretty  sensible,  taken  in  the  long  run,  and 
not  at  all  anxious  to  pull  down  the  social  pillars 
just  to  make  a  noise.  They  will  impiously  carve 
them  a  little  —  yes,  and  occasionally  stick  an  in- 
congruous patch  on  the  wall  of  the  sanctuary 
of  democracy;  but  they  are  never  wilfully  de- 
structive. And  it  cannot  be  denied  that  some 
of  their  architectural  and  decorative  efforts  have 
improved  the  original  design.  The  West  has 
saved  other  sections  a  good  deal  of  trouble  by 
boldly  experimenting  with  devices  it  had 
"thought  up"  amid  the  free  airs  of  the  plains; 
but  the  West,  no  more  than  the  East,  will  give 
storage  to  a  contrivance  that  has  been  proved 
worthless. 

The  vindictive  spirit  that  was  very  marked  in 
the  Wrestern  attitude  toward  the  railroads  for 
many  years  was  not  a  gratuitous  and  unfounded 
hatred  of  corporations,  but  had  a  real  basis  in 
discriminations  that  touched  vitally  the  life 
of  the  farmer  and  the  struggling  towns  to  which 
he  carried  his  products.  The  railroads  were  the 
only  corporations  the  West  knew  before  the 
great  industrial  development.  A  railroad  rep- 
resented "capital,"  and  "capital"  was  there- 
fore a  thing  to  chastise  whenever  opportunity 
offered.  It  has  been  said  in  bitterness  of  late 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     215 

that  the  hostile  legislation  demanded  by  the 
West  "ruined  the  railroads."  This  is  not  a 
subject  for  discussion  here,  but  it  can  hardly  be 
denied  that  the  railroads  invited  the  war  that 
was  made  upon,  them  by  injustices  and  dis- 
criminations of  which  the  obscure  shipper  "had  a 
right  to  complain.  The  antagonism  to  rail- 
roads inspired  a  great  deal  of  radicalism  aimed 
at  capital  generally,  and  "corporate  greed," 
"the  encroachments  of  capital,"  "the  money 
devils  of  Wall  Street,"  and  "special  privilege" 
burned  fiercely  in  our  political  terminology. 
Our  experiment  with  government  control  as  a 
war  measure  has,  of  course,  given  a  new"  twist 
to  the  whole  transportation  problem. 

The  West  likes  to  play  with  novelties.  It  has 
been  hospitable  to  such  devices  as  the  initia- 
tive, the  referendum,  and  the  recall,  multiplied 
agencies  for  State  supervision  in  many  directions, 
and  it  has  shown  in  general  a  confidence  in  auto- 
matic machinery  popularly  designed  to  correct 
all  evils.  The  West  probably  infected  the  rest 
of  the  country  with  the  fallacy  that  the  pass- 
ing of  a  law  is  a  complete  transaction  with- 
out reference  to  its  enforcement,  and  Western 
statute-books  are  littered  with  legislation  often 
frivolous  or  ill  considered.  There  has,  how- 
ever, been  a  marked  reaction  and  the  demand 


216    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

is  rather  for  less  legislation  and  better  adminis- 
tration. A  Western  governor  said  to  me  de- 
spairingly that  his  State  is  "commissioned"  to 
death,  and  that  he  is  constantly  embarrassed 
by  the  difficulty  of  persuading  competent  men  to 
accept  places  on  his  many  bipartisan  regulative 
boards. 

There  is  a  virtue  in  our  very  size  as  a  nation 
and  the  multiplicity  of  interests  represented  by 
the  one  hundred  million  that  make  it  possible 
for  the  majority  to  watch,  as  from  a  huge  am- 
phitheatre, the  experiments  in  some  particular 
arena.  A  new  agrarian  movement  that  origi- 
nated in  North  Dakota  in  1915  has  attained  for- 
midable proportions.  The  Non-Partisan  League 
(it  is  really  a  political  party)  seems  to  have 
sprung  full-panoplied  from  the  Equity  Society, 
and  is  a  successor  of  the  Farmers'  Alliance  and 
Populism.  The  despised  middleman  was  the 
first  object  of  its  animosity,  and  it  began  with  a 
comprehensive  programme  of  State-owned  ele- 
vators and  flour-mills,  packing-houses  and  cold- 
storage  plants.  The  League  carried  North 
Dakota  in  1916,  electing  a  governor  who  imme- 
diately vetoed  a  bill  providing  for  a  State-owned 
terminal  elevator  because  the  League  leaders 
"raised  their  sights"  as  soon  as  they  got  into 
the  trenches.  They  demanded  unlimited  bond- 


ing-power  and  a  complete  new  programme  em- 
bodying a  radical  form  of  State  socialism. 
"Class  struggle,"  says  Mr.  Elmer  T.  Peterson, 
an  authority  on  the  League's  history,  "is  the 
key-note  of  its  propaganda."  The  student  of 
current  political  tendencies  will  do  well  to  keep 
an  eye  on  the  League,  as  it  has  gained  a  strong 
foothold  in  the  Northwest,  and  the  co-operative 
features  of  its  platform  satisfy  an  old  craving 
of  the  farmer  for  State  assistance  in  the  manage- 
ment of  his  business. 

The  League  is  now  thoroughly  organized  in 
the  Dakotas,  Minnesota,  Wisconsin,  Montana, 
Idaho,  and  Colorado  and  is  actively  at  work 
in  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Oklahoma,  and  Texas. 
Governor  Burnquist  of  Minnesota  addressed  a 
letter  to  its  executive  secretary  during  the 
primary  campaign  last  summer  in  which  he  said : 

At  the  time  of  our  entrance  into  the  European  con- 
flict your  organization  condemned  our  government  for 
entering  the  war.  When  it  became  evident  that  this 
course  would  result  in  disaster  for  their  organization  they 
changed  their  course  and  made  an  eleventh-hour  claim  to 
pure  loyalty,  but  notwithstanding  this  claim  the  National 
Non-Partisan  League  is  a  party  of  discontent.  It  has 
drawn  to  it  the  pro-German  element  of  our  State.  Its 
leaders  have  been  closely  connected  with  the  lawless 
I.  W.  W.  and  with  Red  Socialists.  Pacifists  and  peace 
advocates  whose  doctrines  are  of  benefit  to  Germany  are 
among  their  number. 


218    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

The  League's  activities  in  obstructing  con- 
scription and  other  war  measures  have  been 
the  subject  of  investigation  by  military  and 
civil  authorities.  The  Leader,  the  official  organ 
of  the  rirty,  recently  printed,  heavily  capital- 
ized, this  sentiment,  "The  Government  of  the 
People  by  the  Rascals  for  the  Rich, "  as  the  key- 
note of  its  hostility  to  America's  participation 
in  the  war. 

The  West  is  greatly  given  to  sober  second 
thoughts.  Hospitable  to  new  ideas  as  it  has 
proved  itself  to  be,  it  will  stop  short  of  a  leap 
in  the  dark.  There  is  a  point  at  which  it  be- 
comes extremely  conservative.  It  will  run  like 
a  frightened  rabbit  from  some  change  which  it 
has  encouraged.  But  the  West  has  a  passion 
for  social  justice,  and  is  willing  to  make  sacri- 
fices to  gain  it.  The  coming  of  the  war  found 
this  its  chief  concern,  not  under  the  guidance  of 
feverish  agitators  but  from  a  sense  that  de- 
mocracy, to  fulfil  its  destiny,  must  make  the 
conditions  of  life  happy  and  comfortable  for 
the  great  body  of  the  people.  It  is  not  the  "pee- 
pul"  of  the  demagogue  w^ho  are  to  be  reckoned 
with  in  the  immediate  future  of  Western  political 
expression,  but  an  intelligent,  earnest  citizenry, 
anxious  to  view  American  needs  with  the  new 
vision  compelled  by  the  world  struggle  in  the 
defense  of  democracy. 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     219 

The  rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship  long 
enjoyed  by  women  of  certain  Western  States 
ceased  to  be  a  vagary  of  the  untutored  wilds 
when  last  year  New  York  adopted  a  constitu- 
tional amendment  granting  women  the  ballot. 
The  fight  for  a  federal  amendment  was  won  in 
the  House  last  winter  by  a  narrow  margin,  but 
at  this  writing  the  matter  is  still  pending  in  the 
Senate.  Many  of  the  old  arguments  against 
the  enfranchisement  of  women  have  been  pretty 
effectually  disposed  of  in  States  that  were  pio- 
neers in  general  suffrage.  I  lived  for  three  years 
in  Colorado  without  being  conscious  of  any  of 
those  disturbances  to  domesticity  that  we  used 
to  be  told  would  follow  if  women  were  projected 
into  politics.  I  can  testify  that  a  male  voter 
may  register  and  cast  his  ballot  without  any  feel- 
ing that  the  women  he  encounters  as  he  per- 
forms these  exalted  duties  have  relinquished 
any  of  the  ancient  prerogatives  of  their  woman- 
hood. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  experience  of  suffrage 
States  to  justify  a  suspicion  that  women  are 
friendlier  to  radical  movements  than  men,  but 
much  to  sustain  the  assertion  that  they  take 
their  politics  seriously  and  are  as  intelligent  in 
the  exercise  of  the  ballot  as  male  voters.  The 
old  notion  that  the  enfranchisement  of  women 
would  double  the  vote  without  changing  results 


220    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

is  another  fallacy;  I  am  disposed  to  think  them 
more  independent  than  their  male  fellow  citizens 
and  less  likely  to  submit  meekly  to  party  dicta- 
tion. 

Inpractically  every  American  court-and  State- 
house  and  city  hall  there  are  women  holding 
responsible  clerical  positions,  and,  if  the  keeping 
of  important  records  may  be  intrusted  to  women, 
the  task  of  defending  their  exclusion  from  elec- 
tive offices  is  one  that  I  confess  to  be  beyond 
my  powers.  Nor  is  there  anything  shocking  in 
the  presence  of  a  woman  on  the  floor  of  a  legis- 
lative body.  Montana  sent  a  woman  to  the 
national  Congress,  and  already  her  fellow  mem- 
bers hear  her  voice  without  perturbation.  Mrs. 
Agnes  Riddle,  a  member  of  the  Colorado  Senate, 
is  a  real  contributor,  I  shall  not  scruple  to  say, 
to  the  intelligence  and  wisdom  of  that  body. 
Mrs.  Riddle,  apart  from  being  a  stateswoman, 
manages  a  dairy  to  its  utmost  details,  and  dur- 
ing the  session  answers  the  roll-call  after  doing  a 
pretty  full  day's  work  on  her  farm.  The  schools 
of  Colorado  are  admirably  conducted  by  Mrs. 
C.  C.  Bradford,  who  has  thrice  been  re-elected 
superintendent  of  public  instruction.  The  dep- 
uty attorney-general  of  Colorado,  Miss  Clara 
Ruth  Mozzor,  sits  at  her  desk  as  composedly  as 
though  she  were  not  the  first  woman  to  gain 


MIDDLE   WEST  IN  POLITICS     221 

this  political  and  professional  recognition  in  the 
Centennial  Commonwealth.  I  am  moved  to 
ask  whether  we  shall  not  find  for  the  enfranchised 
woman  who  becomes  active  in  public  affairs 
some  more  felicitous  and  gallant  term  than 
politician  —  a  word  much  soiled  from  long  appli- 
cation to  the  corrupt  male,  and  perhaps  the 
Federation  of  Women's  Clubs  will  assist  in 
this  matter. 


As  the  saying  became  trite,  almost  before 
news  of  our  entrance  into  the  world  war  had 
reached  the  nation's  farthest  borders,  that  we 
should  emerge  from  the  conflict  a  new  and  a 
very  different  America,  it  becomes  of  interest 
to  keep  in  mind  the  manner  and  the  spirit  in 
which  we  entered  into  the  mighty  struggle.  It 
was  not  merely  in  the  mind  of  people  everywhere, 
on  the  2d  of  April,  1917,  that  the  nation  was  face 
to  face  with  a  contest  that  would  tax  its  powers 
to  the  utmost,  but  that  our  internal  affairs  would 
be  subjected  to  serious  trial,  and  that  parties 
and  party  policies  would  inevitably  experience 
changes  of  greatest  moment  before  another  gen- 
eral election.  When  this  is  read  the  congres- 
sional campaign  will  be  gathering  headway; 


222    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

as  I  write,  public  attention  is  turning,  rather 
impatiently  it  must  be  said,  to  the  prospects  of 
a  campaign  that  is  likely  to  pursue  its  course  to 
the  accompaniment  of  booming  cannon  over- 
seas. How  much  the  conduct  of  the  war  by 
the  administration  in  power  will  figure  in  the 
pending  contest  is  not  yet  apparent;  but  as 
the  rapid  succession  of  events  following  Mr. 
Wilson's  second  inauguration  have  dimmed 
the  issues  of  1916,  it  may  be  well  to  summarize 
the  respective  attitudes  of  the  two  major 
parties  two  years  ago  to  establish  a  point  of 
orientation. 

It  was  the  chief  Republican  contention  that 
the  Democratic  administration  had  failed  to 
preserve  the  national  honor  and  security  in  its 
dealings  with  Mexico  and  Germany.  As  politi- 
cal platforms  are  soon  forgotten,  it  may  be  of 
interest  to  reproduce  this  paragraph  of  the 
Republican  declaration  of  1916: 

The  present  administration  has  destroyed  our  influence 
abroad  and  humiliated  us  in  our  own  eyes.  The  Repub- 
lican party  believes  that  a  firm,  consistent,  and  courageous 
foreign  policy,  always  maintained  by  Republican  Presi- 
dents in  accordance  with  American  traditions,  is  the  best, 
as  it  is  the  only  true  way  to  preserve  our  peace  and  re- 
store us  to  our  rightful  place  among  the  nations.  We  be- 
lieve in  the  pacific  settlement  of  international  disputes 
and  favor  the  establishment  of  a  world  court  for  that 
purpose. 


MIDDLE   WEST  IN  POLITICS     223 

The  concluding  sentence  is  open  to  the  criti- 
cism that  it  weakens  what  precedes  it;  but  the 
Mexican  plank,  after  denouncing  "the  inde- 
fensible methods  of  interference  employed  by 
this  administration  in  the  internal  affairs  of 
Mexico,"  promises  to  "our  citizens  on  and  near 
our  border,  and  to  those  in  Mexico,  wherever 
they  may  be  found,  adequate  and  absolute 
protection  in  their  lives,  liberty,  and  property." 

General  Pershing  had  launched  his  punitive 
expedition  on  Mexican  soil  in  March,  and  the 
Democratic  platform  adopted  at  St.  Louis  in 
June  justifies  this  move;  but  it  goes  on  to  add: 

Intervention,  implying  as  it  does  military  subjugation, 
is  revolting  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  notwith- 
standing the  provocation  to  that  course  has  been  great, 
and  should  be  resorted  to,  if  at  all,  only  as  a  last  resort. 
The  stubborn  resistance  of  the  President  and  his  advisers 
to  every  demand  and  suggestion  to  enter  upon  it,  is 
creditable  alike  to  them  and  to  the  people  in  whose  name 
he  speaks. 

As  to  Germany,  this  paragraph  of  the  Demo- 
cratic platform  might  almost  have  been  written 
into  President  Wilson's  message  to  Congress  of 
April  2,  1917,  so  clearly  does  it  set  forth  the 
spirit  in  which  America  entered  into  the  \var: 

We  believe  that  every  people  has  the  right  to  choose 
the  sovereignty  under  which  it  shall  live;  that  the  small 
states  of  the  world  have  a  right  to  enjoy  from  other  na- 


224    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

tions  the  same  respect  for  their  sovereignty  and  for  their 
territorial  integrity  that  great  and  powerful  nations  ex- 
pect and  insist  upon,  and  that  the  world  has  a  right  to 
be  free  from  every  disturbance  of  its  peace  that  has  its 
origin  in  aggression  or  disregard  of  the  rights  of  peoples 
and  nations,  and  we  believe  that  the  time  has  come  when 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  join  with  the  other 
nations  of  the  world  in  any  feasible  association  that  will 
effectively  serve  these  principles,  to  maintain  inviolate 
the  complete  security  of  the  highway  of  the  seas  for  the 
common  and  unhindered  use  of  all  nations. 

The  impression  was  very  general  in  the  East 
that  the  West  was  apathetic  or  indifferent  both 
as  to  the  irresponsible  and  hostile  acts  of  Mex- 
icans and  the  growing  insolence  of  the  Imperial 
German  Government  with  reference  to  American 
rights  on  the  seas.  Any  such  assumption  was 
unfair  at  the  time,  and  has  since  been  disproved 
by  the  promptness  and  vigor  with  which  the 
West  responded  to  the  call  to  arms.  But  the 
West  had  no  intention  of  being  stampeded.  A 
Democratic  President  whose  intellectual  proc- 
esses and  manner  of  speech  were  radically  dif- 
ferent from  those  at  least  of  his  immediate  pred- 
ecessors, was  exercising  a  Lincoln-like  patience 
in  his  efforts  to  keep  the  country  out  of  war. 
From  the  time  the  Mexican  situation  became 
threatening  one  might  meet  anywhere  in  the 
West  Republicans  who  thought  that  the  honor 
and  security  of  the  nation  were  being  trifled 


MIDDLE   WEST  IN  POLITICS     225 

with;  that  the  President's  course  was  incon- 
sistent and  vacillating;  and  even  that  we 
should  have  whipped  Mexico  into  subjection 
and  maintained  an  army  on  her  soil  until  a 
stable  government  had  been  established.  These 
views  were  expressed  in  many  parts  of  the  West 
by  men  of  influence  in  Republican  councils,  and 
there  were  Democrats  who  held  like  opinions. 
The  Republicans  were  beset  by  two  great 
difficulties  when  the  national  convention  met. 
The  first  of  these  was  to  win  back  the  Progres- 
sives who  had  broken  with  the  party  and  con- 
tributed to  the  defeat  of  Mr.  Taft  in  1912;  the 
second  was  the  definition  of  a  concrete  policy 
touching  Germany  and  Mexico  that  would  ap- 
peal to  the  patriotic  voter,  without  going  the 
length  of  threatening  war.  The  standpatters 
were  in  no  humor  to  make  concessions  to  the 
Progressives,  who,  in  another  part  of  Chicago, 
were  unwilling  to  receive  the  olive-branch  ex- 
cept on  their  own  terms.  Denied  the  joy  of 
Mr  Roosevelt's  enlivening  presence  to  create  a 
high  moment,  the  spectators  were  aware  of  his 
ability  to  add  to  the  general  gloom  by  his  tele- 
gram suggesting  Senator  Lodge  as  a  compromise 
candidate  acceptable  to  the  Progressives.  The 
speculatively  inclined  may  wonder  what  would 
have  happened  if  in  one  of  the  dreary  hours  of 


226    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

waiting  Colonel  Roosevelt  had  walked  upon 
the  platform  and  addressed  the  convention. 
Again,  those  who  have  leisure  for  political  soli- 
taire may  indulge  in  reflections  as  to  whether 
Senator  Lodge  would  not  have  appealed  to  the 
West  quite  as  strongly  as  Mr.  Hughes.  The 
West,  presumably,  was  not  interested  in  Senator 
Lodge,  though  I  timidly  suggest  that  if  a  New 
Jersey  candidate  can  be  elected  and  re-elected 
with  the  aid  of  the  West,  Massachusetts  need  not 
so  modestly  hang  in  the  background  when  a 
national  convention  orders  the  roll-call  of  the 
States  for  favorite  sons. 

There  was  little  question  at  any  time  from 
the  hour  the  convention  opened  that  Mr. 
Hughes  would  be  the  nominee,  and  I  believe 
it  is  a  fair  statement  that  he  was  the  candidate 
the  Democrats  feared  most.  The  country  had 
formed  a  good  opinion  of  him  as  a  man  of  inde- 
pendence and  courage,  and,  having  strictly  ob- 
served the  silence  enjoined  by  his  position  on 
the  bench  during  the  Republican  family  quar- 
rel of  four  years  earlier,  he  was  looked  upon  as  a 
candidate  well  fitted  to  rally  the  Progressives 
and  lead  a  united  party  to  victory. 

The  West  waited  and  listened.  While  it  had 
seemed  a  "safe  play"  for  the  Republicans  to 
attack  the  Democratic  administration  for  its 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     227 

course  with  Mexico  and  Germany,  the  presenta- 
tion of  the  case  to  the  people  was  attended  with 
serious  embarrassments.  The  obvious  alter- 
native of  Mr.  Wilson's  policy  was  war.  The 
West  was  not  at  all  anxious  for  war;  it  certainly 
did  not  want  two  wars.  If  war  could  be  averted 
by  negotiation  the  West  was  in  a  mood  to  be 
satisfied  with  that  solution.  Republican  cam- 
paigners were  aware  of  the  danger  of  arraigning 
the  administration  for  not  going  to  war  and 
contented  themselves  with  attacks  upon  what 
they  declared  to  be  a  shifty  and  wobbly  policy. 
The  West's  sense  of  fair  play  was,  I  think,  roused 
by  the  vast  amount  of  destructive  criticism 
launched  against  the  administration  unaccom- 
panied by  any  constructive  programme.  The 
President  had  grown  in  public  respect  and  con- 
fidence; the  West  had  seen  and  heard  him  since 
he  became  a  national  figure,  and  he  did  not 
look  or  talk  like  a  man  who  would  out  of  sheer 
contrariness  trifle  with  the  national  security 
and  honor.  It  may  be  said  with  truth  that  the 
average  Western  Democrat  was  not  "keen" 
about  Mr.  Wilson  when  he  first  loomed  as  a 
presidential  possibility.  I  heard  a  good  deal 
of  discussion  b}^  Western  Democrats  of  Mr. 
Wilson's  availability  in  1910-11,  and  he  was 
not  looked  upon  with  favor.  He  was  "dif- 


228    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

ferent";  he  didn't  invoke  the  Democratic  gods 
in  the  old  familiar  phraseology,  and  he  was 
suspected  of  entertaining  narrow  views  as  to 
"spoils,"  such  as  caused  so  much  heartache 
among  the  truly  loyal  in  Mr.  Cleveland's  two  ad- 
ministrations. 

The  Democratic  campaign  slogan,  "He  has 
kept  us  out  of  war!"  was  not  met  with  the 
definite  challenge  that  he  should  have  got  us  into 
war.  Jingoism  was  well  muffled.  What  passed 
for  apathy  was  really  a  deep  concern  as  to  the 
outcome  of  our  pressing  international  difficul- 
ties, an  anxiety  to  weigh  the  points  at  issue 
soberly.  Western  managers  constantly  warned 
visiting  orators  to  beware  of  "abusing  the  op- 
position," as  there  wyere  men  and  women  of  all 
political  faiths  in  the  audiences.  Both  sides 
were  timid  where  the  German  vote  was  con- 
cerned, the  Democrats  alarmed  lest  the  "strict 
accountability"  attitude  of  the  President  toward 
the  Imperial  German  Government  would  dam- 
age the  party's  chances,  and  the  Republicans 
embarrassed  by  the  danger  of  openly  appealing 
to  the  hyphenates  when  the  Republican  cam- 
paign turned  upon  an  arraignment  of  the  Presi- 
dent for  not  dealing  drastically  enough  with 
German  encroachment  upon  American  rights. 
In  view  of  the  mighty  sweep  of  events  since  the 


MIDDLE  WEST  IN  POLITICS     229 

election,  all  this  seems  tame  and  puerile,  and 
reminds  us  that  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  punk 
in  politics. 

In  the  West  there  are  no  indications  that  an 
effect  of  the  war  will  be  to  awaken  new  radical 
movements  or  strengthen  tendencies  that  were 
apparent  before  America  sounded  the  call  to 
arms.  I  have  dwelt  upon  the  sobriety  with 
which  the  West  approached  the  election  of  1916 
merely  as  an  emphasis  of  this.  We  shall  have 
once  more  a  "soldier  vote"  to  reckon  with  in 
our  politics,  and  the  effect  of  their  participa- 
tion in  the  world  struggle  upon  the  young  men 
who  have  crossed  the  sea  to  fight  for  democracy 
is  an  interesting  matter  for  speculation.  One 
thing  certain  is  that  the  war  has  dealt  the 
greatest  blow  ever  administered  to  American 
sectionalism.  We  were  prone  for  years  to 
consider  our  national  life  in  a  local  spirit,  and 
the  political  parties  expended  much  energy 
in  attempts  to  reconcile  the  demands  and  needs 
of  one  division  of  the  States  with  those  of  an- 
other. The  prolonged  debate  of  the  tariff  as 
a  partisan  issue  is  a  noteworthy  instance  of 
this.  The  farmer,  the  industrial  laborer,  the 
capitalist  have  all  been  the  objects  of  special 
consideration.  One  argument  had  to  be  pre- 
pared for  the  cotton-grower  in  the  South; 


230    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

another  for  the  New  England  mill-hands  who 
spun  his  product;  still  another  for  the  mill- 
owner.  The  farm-hand  and  the  mechanic  in 
the  neighboring  manufacturing  town  had  to 
be  reached  by  different  lines  of  reasoning.  Our 
statesmanship,  East  and  West,  has  been  of  the 
knot-hole  variety — rarely  has  a  man  risen  to  the 
top  of  the  fence  for  a  broad  view  of  the  whole 
field.  What  will  be  acceptable  to  the  South? 
What  does  the  West  want?  We  have  had  this 
sort  of  thing  through  many  years,  both  as  to 
national  policies  and  as  to  candidates  for  the 
presidency,  and  its  effect  has  been  to  prevent 
the  development  of  sound  national  policies. 

The  Republican  party  has  addressed  itself 
energetically  to  the  business  of  reorganization. 
The  national  committee  met  at  St.  Louis  in 
February  to  choose  a  new  chairman  in  place  of 
Mr.  William  R.  Willcox,  and  the  contest  for 
this  important  position  was  not  without  its 
significance.  The  standpatters  yielded  under 
pressure,  and  after  a  forty-eight-hour  deadlock 
the  election  of  Mr.  Will  H.  Hays,  of  Indiana, 
assured  a  hospitable  open-door  policy  toward 
all  prodigals.  In  1916  Mr.  Hays,  as  chairman 
of  the  Republican  State  committee,  carried  In- 
diana against  heavy  odds  and  established  him- 
self as  one  of  the  ablest  political  managers  the 


MIDDLE   WEST  IN  POLITICS     231 

West  has  known.  As  the  country  is  likely  to 
hear  a  good  deal  of  him  in  the  next  two  years, 
I  may  note  that  he  is  a  man  of  education,  high- 
minded,  resourceful,  endowed  with  prodigious 
energy  and  trained  and  tested  executive  ability. 
A  lawyer  in  a  town  of  five  thousand  people,  he 
served  his  political  apprenticeship  in  all  capaci- 
ties from  precinct  committeeman  to  the  State 
chairmanship.  Mr.  Hays  organized  and  was 
the  first  chairman  of  the  Indiana  State  Council 
of  Defense,  and  made  it  a  thoroughly  effective 
instrument  for  the  co-ordination  of  the  State's 
war  resources  and  the  diffusion  of  an  ardent 
patriotism.  Indeed  the  methods  of  the  Indiana 
Council  were  so  admirable  that  they  were 
adopted  by  several  other  States.  It  is  in  the 
blood  of  all  Hoosiers  to  suspect  partisan  mo- 
tives where  none  exists,  but  it  is  to  Mr.  Hays's 
credit  that  he  directed  Indiana's  war  work,  un- 
til he  resigned  to  accept  the  national  chairman- 
ship, with  the  support  and  to  the  satisfaction 
of  every  loyal  citizen  without  respect  to  party. 
Mr.  Hays  is  essentially  a  Westerner,  with  the 
original  Wabash  tang;  and  his  humor  and  a 
knack  of  coining  memorable  phrases  are  not 
the  least  important  items  of  his  equipment  for 
politics.  He  is  frank  and  outspoken,  with  no 
affectations  of  mystery,  and  as  his  methods  are 


232    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

conciliatory  and  assimilative  the  chances  are 
excellent  for  a  Republican  rejuvenation. 

The  burden  of  prosecuting  the  war  to  a  con- 
clusive peace  that  shall  realize  the  American 
aims  repeatedly  set  forth  by  President  Wilson  is 
upon  the  Democratic  administration.  The  West 
awaits  with  the  same  seriousness  with  which  it 
pondered  the  problems  of  1916  the  definition 
of  new  issues  touching  vitally  our  social,  in- 
dustrial, and  financial  affairs,  and  our  relations 
\vith  other  nations,  that  will  press  for  attention 
the  instant  the  last  shot  is  fired.  In  the  mid- 
summer of  1918  only  the  most  venturesome 
political  prophets  are  predicting  either  the 
issues  or  the  leaders  of  1920.  Events  which  it 
is  impossible  to  forecast  will  create  issues  and 
possibly  lift  up  new  leaders  not  now  prominent 
in  national  politics.  A  successful  conclusion 
of  the  war  before  the  national  conventions  meet 
two  years  hence  would  give  President  Wilson 
and  his  party  an  enormous  prestige.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  war  should  be  prolonged  we 
shall  witness  inevitably  the  development  of  a 
sentiment  for  change  based  upon  public  anxiety 
to  hasten  the  day  of  peace.  These  things  are 
on  the  knees  of  the  gods. 

In  both  parties  there  is  to-day  a  melancholy 
deficiency  of  presidential  timber.  It  cannot 


MIDDLE   WEST  IN   POLITICS     233 

be  denied  that  Republican  hopes,  very  gener- 
ally, are  centred  in  Mr.  Roosevelt;  this  is 
clearly  apparent  throughout  the  West.  In  the 
Democratic  State  convention  held  at  Indian- 
apolis, June  18,  tumultuous  enthusiasm  was 
awakened  by  the  chairman,  former  Governor 
Samuel  M.  Ralston,  who  boldly  declared  for 
Wilson  in  1920  —  the  first  utterance  of  the 
kind  before  any  body  of  like  representative 
character.  However,  the  immediate  business 
of  the  nation  is  to  win  the  war,  and  there  is  evi- 
dent in  the  West  no  disposition  to  suffer  this  pre- 
dominating issue  to  be  obscured  by  partisan- 
ship. Indeed  since  America  took  up  arms 
nothing  has  been  more  marked  in  the  Western 
States  than  the  sinking  of  partisanship  in  a 
whole-hearted  support  of  the  government  and 
a  generous  response  to  all  the  demands  of  the 
\var.  In  meetings  called  in  aid  of  war  causes 
Democrats  and  Republicans  have  vied  with 
each  other  in  protestations  of  loyalty  to  the 
government.  I  know  of  no  exception  to  the 
rule  that  every  request  from  Washington  has 
been  met  splendidly  by  Republican  State  gov- 
ernors. Indeed,  there  has  been  a  lively  rivalry 
among  Middle  Western  States  to  exceed  the 
prescribed  quotas  of  dollars  and  men. 

Already  an  effect  of  the  war  has  been  a  closer 


knitting  together  of  States  and  sections,  a 
contemplation  of  wider  horizons.  It  is  inevi- 
table that  we  shall  be  brought,  East  and  West, 
North  and  South,  to  the  realization  of  a  new 
national  consciousness  that  has  long  been  the 
imperative  need  of  our  politics.  And  in  all  the 
impending  changes,  readjustments,  and  con- 
ciliations the  country  may  look  for  hearty  co- 
operation to  a  West  grown  amazingly  conserva- 
tive and  capable  of  astonishing  manifestations 
of  independence. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE   SPIRIT  OF  THE   WEST 

The  wise  know  that  foolish  legislation  is  a  rope  of  sand,  which 
perishes  in  the  twisting;  that  the  State  must  follow,  and  not 
lead,  the  character  and  progress  of  the  citizen;  the  strongest 
usurper  is  quickly  got  rid  of;  and  they  only  who  build  on  Ideas, 
build  for  eternity;  and  that  the  form  of  government  which  pre- 
vails is  the  expression  of  what  cultivation  exists  in  the  popula- 
tion which  permits  it. — EMERSON. 


MUCH  water  has  flowed  under  the 
bridge  since  these  papers  were  under- 
taken, and  I  cheerfully  confess  that 
in  the  course  of  the  year  I  have  learned  a  great 
deal  about  the  West.  My  observations  began 
at  Denver  when  the  land  was  still  at  peace, 
and  continued  through  the  hour  of  the  momen- 
tous decision  and  the  subsequent  months  of 
preparation.  The  West  is  a  place  of  moods 
and  its  changes  of  spirit  are  sometimes  puzzling. 
The  violence  has  gone  out  of  us;  we  went 
upon  a  war  footing  with  a  minimum  amount  of 
noise  and  gesticulation.  Deeply  preoccupied 
with  other  matters,  the  West  was  annoyed  that 
the  Kaiser  should  so  stupidly  make  it  necessary 
for  the  American  Republic  to  give  him  a  thrash- 

235 


ing,  but  as  the  thing  had  to  be  done  the  West 
addressed  itself  to  the  job  with  a  grim  determi- 
nation to  do  it  thoroughly. 

We  heard,  after  the  election  of  1916,  that  the 
result  was  an  indication  of  the  West's  indiffer- 
ence to  the  national  danger;  that  the  Middle 
Western  people  could  not  be  interested  in  a 
war  on  the  farther  side  of  the  Atlantic  and 
would  suffer  any  indignities  rather  than  send 
their  sons  to  fight  in  Europe.  It  was  charged 
in  some  quarters  that  the  West  had  lost  its 
"pep";  that  the  fibre  had  softened;  that  the 
children  and  the  grandchildren  of  "Lincoln's 
men"  were  insensible  to  the  national  danger; 
and  that  thoughts  of  a  bombardment  of  New 
York  or  San  Francisco  were  not  disturbing  to  a 
people  remote  from  the  sea.  I  am  moved  to 
remark  that  we  of  the  West  are  less  disposed  to 
encourage  the  idea  that  we  are  a  people  apart 
than  our  friends  to  the  eastward  who  often  seem 
anxious  to  force  this  attitude  upon  us.  We  like 
our  West  and  may  boast  and  strut  a  little,  but 
any  intimation  that  we  are  not  loyal  citizens  of 
the  American  Republic,  jealous  of  its  honor  and 
security  and  responsive  to  its  every  call  upon 
our  patriotism  and  generosity,  arouses  our  in- 
dignation. 

Many  of  us  were  favored  in  the  first  years  of 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      237 

the  war  with  letters  from  Eastern  friends  anx- 
ious to  enlighten  us  as  to  America's  danger 
and  her  duty  with  respect  to  the  needs  of  the 
sufferers  in  the  wake  of  battle.  On  a  day  when 
I  received  a  communication  from  New  York 
asking  "whether  nothing  could  be  done  in 
Indiana  to  rouse  the  people  to  the  sore  need  of 
France,"  a  committee  for  French  relief  had  just 
closed  a  week's  campaign  with  a  fund  of  $17,000, 
collected  over  the  State  in  small  sums  and  con- 
tributed very  largely  by  school  children.  The 
Millers'  Belgian  Relief  movement,  initiated  in 
the  fall  of  1914  by  Mr.  William  C.  Edgar,  of 
Minneapolis,  publisher  of  The  Northwestern 
Miller,  affords  a  noteworthy  instance  of  the 
West's  response  to  appeals  in  behalf  of  the 
people  in  the  trampled  kingdom.  A  call  was 
issued  November  4  for  45,000  barrels  of  flour, 
but  70,000  barrels  were  contributed;  and  this 
cargo  was  augmented  by  substantial  gifts  of 
blankets,  clothing  for  women  and  children, 
and  condensed  milk.  These  supplies  were  dis- 
tributed in  Belgium  under  Mr.  Edgar's  per- 
sonal direction,  in  co-operation  with  Mr.  Her- 
bert C.  Hoover,  chairman  of  the  Commission 
for  the  Relief  of  Belgium. 

Many   Westerners   were   fighting   under   the 
British  and  French  flags,  or  were  serving  in  the 


238    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

French  ambulance  service  before  our  entrance 
into  the  war,  and  the  opening  of  the  officers' 
training-camps  in  1917  found  young  Westerners 
of  the  best  type  clamoring  for  admission.  The 
Western  colleges  and  universities  cannot  be  too 
strongly  praised  for  the  patriotic  fervor  with 
which  they  met  the  crisis.  One  president  said 
that  if  necessary  he  would  nail  up  the  doors 
of  his  college  until  the  war  was  over.  The  eager- 
ness to  serve  is  indicated  in  the  Regular  Army 
enlistments  for  the  period  from  June  to  Decem- 
ber, 1917,  in  which  practically  all  of  the  Mid- 
dle Western  States  doubled  and  tripled  the 
quota  fixed  by  the  War  Department;  and  any 
assumption  that  patriotism  diminishes  the 
farther  we  penetrate  into  the  interior  falls  be- 
fore the  showing  of  Colorado,  whose  response 
to  a  call  for  1,598  men  was  answered  by  3,793; 
and  Utah  multiplied  her  quota  by  5  and  Mon- 
tana by  7.  This  takes  no  account  of  men  who, 
in  the  period  indicated,  entered  training-camps, 
or  of  naval  and  marine  enlistments,  or  of  the 
National  Guard  or  the  selective  draft.  More 
completely  than  ever  before  the  West  is  merged 
into  the  nation.  The  situation  when  war  was 
declared  is  comparable  to  that  of  householders, 
long  engrossed  with  their  domestic  affairs  and 
heeding  little  the  needs  of  the  community, 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      239 

who  are  brought  to  the  street  by  a  common  peril 
and  confer  soberly  as  to  ways  and  means  of 
meeting  it. 

"The  West,"  an  Eastern  critic  complains, 
"appears  always  to  be  demanding  something!" 
The  idea  of  the  West  as  an  Oliver  Twist  with 
a  plate  insistently  extended  pleases  me  and  I 
am  unable  to  meet  it  with  any  plausible  refuta- 
tion. The  West  has  always  wanted  and  it  will 
continue  to  want  and  to  ask  for  a  great  many 
things;  we  may  only  pray  that  it  will  more  and 
more  hammer  upon  the  federal  counter,  not  for 
appropriations  but  for  things  of  value  for  the 
whole.  "We  will  try  anything  once!"  This 
for  long  was  more  or  less  the  Western  attitude 
in  politics,  but  we  seem  to  have  escaped  from 
it;  and  the  war,  with  its  enormous  demands 
upon  our  resources,  its  revelation  of  national 
weaknesses,  caused  a  prompt  cleaning  of  the 
slate  of  old,  unfinished  business  to  await  the  out- 
come. 

It  is  an  element  of  strength  in  a  democracy 
that  its  political  and  social  necessities  are  con- 
tinuing; there  is  no  point  of  rest.  Obstacles, 
differences,  criticism  are  all  a  necessary  part 
of  the  eternal  struggle  toward  perfection. '  What 
was  impossible  yesterday  is  achieved  to-day  and 
may  be  abandoned  to-morrow.  Democracy,  as 


240    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

we  have  thus  far  practised  it,  is  a  series  of  ex- 
periments, a  quest. 


II 

The  enormous  industrial  development  of  the 
Middle  West  was  a  thing  undreamed  of  by  the 
pioneers,  whose  chief  concern  was  with  the  soil; 
there  was  no  way  of  anticipating  the  economic 
changes  that  have  been  forced  upon  attention 
by  the  growth  of  cities  and  States.  Minne- 
sota had  been  a  State  thirteen  years  when  in 
1871  Proctor  Knott,  in  a  speech  in  Congress, 
ridiculed  the  then  unknown  name  of  Duluth: 
"The  word  fell  upon  my  ear  with  a  peculiar  and 
indescribable  charm,  like  the  gentle  murmur  of 
a  low  fountain  stealing  forth  in  the  midst  of 
roses,  or  the  soft,  sweet  accent  of  an  angel's 
whisper  in  the  bright,  joyous  dream  of  sleeping 
innocence."  And  yet  Duluth  has  become  in- 
deed a  zenith  city  of  the  saltless  seas,  and  the 
manufactured  products  of  Minnesota  have  an 
annual  value  approximating  $500,000,000. 

The  first  artisans,  the  blacksmiths  and  wagon- 
makers,  and  the  women  weaving  cloth  and 
fashioning  the  garments  for  their  families  in 
Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Missouri,  never 
dreamed  that  the  manufactures  of  these  States 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      241 

alone  would  attain  a  value  of  $5,500,000,000, 
approximately  a  fifth  of  the  nation's  total.  The 
original  social  and  economic  structure  was  not 
prepared  for  this  mighty  growth.  States  in 
which  the  soil  was  tilled  almost  wholly  by  the 
owners  of  the  land  were  unexpectedly  confronted 
with  social  and  economic  questions  foreign  to  all 
their  experience.  Rural  legislators  were  called 
upon  to  deal  with  questions  of  which  they  had 
only  the  most  imperfect  understanding.  They 
were  bewildered  to  find  the  towns  nearest  them, 
which  had  been  only  trading  centres  for  the 
farmer,  asking  for  legislation  touching  working 
hours,  housing,  and  child  labor,  and  for  modifica- 
tions of  local  government  made  necessary  by 
growth  and  radical  changes  in  social  conditions. 
I  remember  my  surprise  to  find  not  long  ago 
that  a  small  town  I  had  known  all  my  life  had 
become  an  industrial  centre  where  the  citizens 
were  gravely  discussing  their  responsibilities  to 
the  laborers  who  had  suddenly  been  added  to 
the  population. 

The  preponderating  element  in  the  original 
occupation  of  the  Middle  Western  States  was 
American,  derived  from  the  older  States;  and 
the  precipitation  into  the  Mississippi  valley  in- 
dustrial centres  of  great  bodies  of  foreigners, 
many  of  them  only  vaguely  aware  of  the  pur- 


242    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

poses  and  methods  of  democracy,  added  an  ele- 
ment of  confusion  and  peril  to  State  and  na- 
tional politics.  The  perplexities  and  dangers 
of  municipal  government  were  multiplied  in  the 
larger  cities  by  the  injection  into  the  electorate 
of  the  hordes  from  overseas  that  poured  into 
States  whose  government  and  laws  had  been 
fashioned  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  homogeneous 
people  who  lived  close  to  the  soil. 

The  war  that  has  emphasized  so  many  needs 
and  dangers  has  sharply  accentuated  the  grow- 
ing power  of  labor.  Certain  manifestations  of 
this  may  no  longer  be  viewed  in  the  light  of 
local  disturbances  and  agitations  but  with  an 
eye  upon  impending  world  changes.  Whatever 
the  questions  of  social  and  economic  recon- 
struction that  Europe  must  face,  they  will  be 
hardly  less  acutely  presented  in  America;  and 
these  matters  are  being  discussed  in  the  West 
with  a  reassuring  sobriety.  The  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World  has  widely  advertised  it- 
self by  its  lawlessness,  in  recent  years,  and  its 
obstructive  tactics  with  respect  to  America's 
preparations  for  war  have  focussed  attention 
upon  it  as  an  organization  utterly  inconsonant 
with  American  institutions.  An  arresting  in- 
cident of  recent  years  was  the  trial,  in  1912,  in 
the  United  States  Court  for  the  District  of 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      243 

Indiana,  of  forty-two  officers  and  members  of 
the  International  Association  of  Structural  Iron 
Workers  for  the  dynamiting  of  buildings  and 
bridges  throughout  the  country.  The  trial 
lasted  three  months,  and  the  disclosures,  point- 
ing to  a  thoroughly  organized  conspiracy  of  de- 
struction, were  of  the  most  startling  character. 
Thirty-eight  of  the  defendants  were  convicted. 
The  influence  of  labor  in  the  great  industrial 
States  of  the  West  is  very  great,  and  not  a  negli- 
gible factor  in  the  politics  of  the  immediate 
future.  What  industrial  labor  has  gained  has 
been  through  constant  pressure  of  its  organiza- 
tions; and  yet  the  changes  of  the  past  fifty  years 
have  been  so  gradual  as  to  present,  in  the  retro- 
spect, the  appearance  of  an  evolution. 

There  is  little  to  support  an  assumption  that 
the  West  in  these  critical  hours  will  not  take 
counsel  of  reason;  and  it  is  an  interesting  cir- 
cumstance that  the  West  has  just  now  no  one 
who  may  be  pointed  to  as  its  spokesman.  No 
one  is  speaking  for  the  West;  the  West  has 
learned  to  think  and  to  speak  for  itself.  "Or- 
ganized emotion"  (I  believe  the  phrase  is 
President  Lowell's)  may  again  become  a  power 
for  mischief  in  these  plains  that  lend  so  amiable 
an  ear  to  the  orator;  but  the  new  seriousness  of 
which  I  have  attempted  to  give  some  hint  in 


244    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

the  progress  of  these  papers,  and  the  increasing 
political  independence  of  the  Western  people, 
encourage  the  belief  that  whatever  lies  before 
us  in  the  way  of  momentous  change,  the  West 
will  not  be  led  or  driven  to  ill-considered  action. 
In  spite  of  many  signs  of  a  drift  toward  social 
democracy,  individualism  is  still  the  dominant 
"note"  in  these  Middle  Western  States,  apart 
from  the  industrial  centres  where  socialism  has 
indisputably  made  great  headway.  It  may  be 
that  American  political  and  social  phenomena 
are  best  observed  in  States  whose  earliest  settle- 
ment is  so  recent  as  to  form  a  background  for 
contrast.  We  have  still  markedly  in  the  Missis- 
sippi valley  the  individualistic  point  of  view  of 
the  pioneer  who  thought  out  his  problems  alone 
and  was  restrained  by  pride  from  confessing  his 
needs  to  his  neighbors.  In  a  region  where 
capital  has  been  most  bitterly  assaulted  it  has 
been  more  particularly  in  the  pursuit  of  redress 
for  local  grievances.  The  agrarian  attacks  up- 
on railroads  are  an  instance  of  this.  The  farmer 
wants  quick  and  cheap  access  to  markets,  and 
he  favors  co-operative  elevators  because  he  has 
felt  for  years  that  the  middleman  poured  too 
many  grains  out  of  the  bushel  for  his  services. 
In  so  far  as  the  farmer's  relations  with  the  State 
are  concerned,  he  has  received  from  the  govern- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE   WEST      245 

ment  a  great  many  things  for  which,  broadly 
speaking,  he  has  not  asked,  notably  in  the  de- 
velopment of  a  greater  efficiency  of  method 
and  a  widening  of  social  horizons. 


Ill 

When  the  New  Englander,  the  Southeasterner, 
and  the  Pennsylvanian  met  in  the  Ohio  valley 
they  spoke  a  common  language  and  were  ani- 
mated by  common  aims.  Their  differences 
were  readily  reconcilable;  Southern  sentiment 
caused  tension  in  the  Civil  War  period  and  was 
recognizable  in  politics  through  reconstruction 
and  later,  but  it  was  possible  for  one  to  be 
classed  as  a  Southern  sympathizer  or  even  to 
bear  the  opprobrious  epithet  of  copperhead 
without  having  his  fundamental  Americanism 
questioned.  Counties  through  this  belt  of 
States  were  named  for  American  heroes  and 
statesmen  -  -  Washington,  Franklin,  Jefferson, 
Hamilton,  Marion,  Clark,  Perry  —  varied  by 
French  and  Indian  names  that  tinkle  musically 
along  lakes  and  rivers. 

There  was  never  any  doubt  in  the  early  days 
that  all  who  came  were  quickly  assimilated  into 
the  body  of  the  republic,  and  certainly  there 
was  no  fear  that  any  conceivable  situation  could 


246    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

ever  cause  the  loyalty  of  the  newly  adopted 
citizen  to  be  questioned.  The  soil  was  too 
young  in  the  days  of  Knownothingism  and  the 
body  of  the  population  too  soundly  American 
for  the  West  to  be  greatly  roused  by  that 
movement.  Nevertheless  we  have  had  in  the 
West  as  elsewhere  the  political  recognition  of 
the  race  group  —  a  particular  consideration  for 
the  Irish  vote  or  the  German  vote,  and  in  the 
Northwestern  States  for  the  Scandinavian.  The 
political  "bosses"  were  not  slow  to  throw  their 
lines  around  the  increasing  race  groups  with  a 
view  to  control  and  manipulation.  Our  political 
platforms  frequently  expressed  "sympathy  with 
the  Irish  people  in  their  struggle  for  home  rule," 
and  it  had  always  been  considered  "good  poli- 
tics" to  recognize  the  Irish  and  the  Germans  in 
party  nominations. 

Following  Germany's  first  hostile  acts  against 
American  life  and  property,  through  the  long 
months  of  waiting  in  which  America  hoped  for  a 
continuation  of  neutrality,  we  became  conscious 
that  the  point  of  view  held  by  citizens  of  Ameri- 
can stock  differed  greatly  from  that  of  many  — 
of,  indeed,  the  greater  number  —  of  our  citizens 
of  German  birth  or  ancestry.  Until  America 
became  directly  concerned  it  was  perfectly  ex- 
plicable that  they  should  sympathize  with  the 


people,  if  not  with  the  government,  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire.  The  Lusitania  tragedy,  defended 
in  many  cases  openly  by  German  sympathizers; 
the  disclosure  of  the  duplicity  of  the  German 
ambassador,  and  revelations  of  the  insidious 
activity  and  ingenious  propaganda  that  had  been 
in  progress  under  the  guise  of  pacifism  —  all 
condoned  by  great  numbers  of  German-Ameri- 
cans —  brought  us  to  a  realization  of  the  fact 
that  even  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation 
the  fatherland  still  exercised  its  spell  upon  those 
we  had  accepted  unquestioningly  as  fellow  citi- 
zens. And  yet,  viewed  in  the  retrospect,  the 
phenomenon  is  not  so  remarkable.  More  than 
any  other  people  who  have  enjoyed  free  access 
to  the  "unguarded  gates,"  of  which  Aldrich 
complained  many  years  ago,  the  Germans  have 
settled  themselves  in  both  town  and  country  in 
colonies.  Intermarriage  has  been  very  general 
among  them,  and  their  social  life  has  been  cir- 
cumscribed by  ancestral  tastes  and  preferences. 
As  they  prospered  they  made  frequent  visits 
to  Germany,  strengthening  ties  never  wholly 
broken. 

It  was  borne  in  upon  us  in  the  months  follow- 
ing close  upon  the  declaration  of  war  against 
Germany,  that  many  citizens  of  German  birth, 
long  enjoying  the  freedom  and  the  opportunities 


of  the  Valley  of  Democracy,  had  not  really  been 
incorporated  into  the  body  of  American  citizen- 
ship, but  were  still,  in  varying  degrees,  loyal  to 
the  German  autocracy.  That  in  States  we  had 
proudly  pointed  to  as  typically  American  there 
should  be  open  disloyalty  or  only  a  surly  accep- 
tance of  the  American  Government's  position 
with  reference  to  a  hostile  foreign  Power  was 
profoundly  disturbing.  That  amid  the  perils 
of  war  Americanism  should  become  the  issue  in 
a  political  campaign,  as  in  Wisconsin  last  April, 
brought  us  face  to  face  with  the  problem  of  a 
more  thorough  assimilation  of  those  we  have 
welcomed  from  the  Old  World  —  a  problem 
which  when  the  urgent  business  of  winning  the 
war  has  been  disposed  of,  we  shall  not  neglect 
if  we  are  wise.  Wisconsin  nobly  asserted  her 
loyalty,  and  it  should  be  noted  further  that  her 
response  in  enlistments,  in  loan  subscriptions,  in 
contributions  to  the  Red  Cross  and  other  war 
benevolences  have  been  commensurate  with  her 
wealth  and  in  keeping  with  her  honorable  record 
as  one  of  the  sturdiest  of  American  common- 
wealths. The  rest  of  America  should  know  that 
as  soon  as  Wisconsin  realized  that  she  had  a  prob- 
lem with  reference  to  pro-Germanism,  disguised 
or  open,  her  greatly  preponderating  number  of 
loyal  citizens  at  once  set  to  work  to  deal  with  the 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      249 

situation.  It  was  met  promptly  and  aggres- 
sively, and  in  the  wide-spread  campaign  of 
education  the  University  of  Wisconsin  took  an 
important  part.  A  series  of  pamphlets,  straight- 
forward and  unequivocal,  written  by  members 
of  the  faculty  and  published  by  the  State, 
set  forth  very  clearly  America's  position  and 
the  menace  to  civilization  of  Germany's  pro- 
gramme of  frightfulness. 

Governor  Philipp,  in  a  patriotic  address  at 
Sheboygan  in  May,  on  the  seventieth  anni- 
versary of  Wisconsin's  admission  to  the  Union, 
after  reviewing  the  State's  war  preparations, 
evoked  great  applause  by  these  utterances: 

"There  is  a  great  deal  said  by  some  people 
about  peace.  Don't  you  permit  yourselves  to 
be  led  astray  by  men  who  come  to  you  with 
some  form  of  peace  that  they  advocate  that 
would  be  an  everlasting  disgrace  to  the  American 
people.  WTe  cannot  subscribe  to  any  peace 
treaty,  my  friends,  that  does  not  include 
within  its  provisions  an  absolute  and  complete 
annihilation  of  the  military  autocracy  that  we 
have  said  to  the  world  we  are  going  to  destroy. 
We  have  enlisted  our  soldiers  with  that  under- 
standing. We  have  asked  our  boys  to  go  to 
France  to  do  that,  and  if  we  quit  short  of  ful- 
filling that  contract  with  our  own  soldiers,  those 


250    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

boys  on  the  battlefield  will  have  given  their 
lives  in  vain." 

In  the  present  state  of  feeling  it  is  impossible 
to  weigh  from  available  data  the  question  of 
how  far  there  was  some  sort  of  "understanding" 
between  the  government  at  Berlin  and  persons 
of  German  sympathies  in  the  United  States 
that  when  Der  Tag  dawned  for  the  precipita- 
tion of  the  great  scheme  of  world  domination 
they  would  stand  ready  to  assist  by  various 
processes  of  resistance  and  interference.  For 
the  many  German-Americans  who  stood  stead- 
fastly for  the  American  cause  at  all  times  it  is 
unfortunate  that  much  testimony  points  to 
some  such  arrangement.  At  this  time  it  is 
difficult  to  be  just  about  this,  and  it  is  far  from 
my  purpose  to  support  an  indictment  that  is 
an  affront  to  the  intelligence  and  honor  of  the 
many  for  the  offenses  of  scattered  groups  and 
individuals;  and  yet  through  fifty  years  Ger- 
man organizations,  a  German-language  press, 
the  teaching  of  German  in  public  schools  fos- 
tered the  German  spirit,  and  the  efforts  made  to 
preserve  the  solidarity  of  the  German  people 
lend  color  to  the  charge.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that  systematic  German  propaganda,  either 
open  or  in  pacifist  guise,  was  at  work  ener- 
getically throughout  the  West  from  the  begin- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      251 

ning  of  the  war  to  arouse  sentiment  against 
American  resistance  to  German  encroachments. 
Americans  of  German  birth  have  been  con- 
trolled very  largely  by  leaders,  often  men  of 
wealth,  who  directed  them  in  their  affairs  great 
and  small.  This  "system"  took  root  in  times 
when  the  immigrant,  finding  himself  in  a  strange 
land  and  unfamiliar  with  its  language,  naturally 
sought  counsel  of  his  fellow  countrymen  who 
had  already  learned  the  ways  of  America. 
This  form  of  leadership  has  established  a  curious 
habit  of  dependence,  and  makes  against  free- 
dom of  thought  and  action  in  the  humble  while 
augmenting  the  power  of  the  strong.  It  has 
been  a  common  thing  for  German  parents  to  en- 
courage in  their  children  the  idea  of  German 
superiority  and  Germany's  destiny  to  rule  the 
world.  A  gentleman  whose  parents,  born  in 
Germany,  came  to  the  Middle  West  fifty  years 
ago  told  me  recently  that  his  father,  who 
left  Germany  to  escape  military  service,  had 
sought  to  inculcate  these  ideas  in  the  minds  of 
his  children  from  their  earliest  youth.  The 
sneer  at  American  institutions  has  been  very 
common  among  Germans  of  this  type.  Another 
young  man  of  German  ancestry  complained 
bitterly  of  this  contemptuous  attitude  toward 
things  American.  There  was,  he  said,  a  group 


252    THE   VALLEY   OF   DEMOCRACY 

of  men  who  met  constantly  in  a  German  club- 
bouse  to  belittle  Ajncrica  and  exalt  the  joys  of 
the  fatherland.  Their  attitude  toward  their 
adopted  country  was  condensed  into  an  oft- 

• 

repeated  formula:  "What  shall  we  think  of  a 
people  whose  language  does  not  contain  an 
equivalent  for  Gemiitlichkeitl" 

As  part  of  the  year's  record  I  may  speak 
from  direct  knowledge  of  a  situation  with  which 
we  were  brought  face  to  face  in  Indianapolis, 
a  city  of  three  hundred  thousand  people,  in  a 
State  in  which  the  centre  of  population  for  the 
United  States  has  been  fixed  by  the  federal 
census  for  two  decades.  Indiana's  capital,  we 
like  to  believe,  is  a  typical  American  city. 
Here  the  two  tides  of  migration  from  the  East 
and  the  Southeast  met  in  the  first  settlement. 
A  majestic  shaft  in  the  heart  of  the  town  testi- 
fies to  the  participation  of  Indiana  in  all  the 
American  wars  from  the  Revolution;  in  no 
other  State  perhaps  is  political  activity  so  vigor- 
ous as  here.  It  would  seem  that  if  there  exists 
anywhere  a  healthy  American  spirit  it  might  be 
sought  here  with  confidence.  The  phrase  "He's 
an  honest  German"  nowhere  conveyed  a  deeper 
sense  of  rectitude  and  probity.  Men  of  Ger- 
man birth  or  ancestry  have  repeatedly  held 
responsible  municipal  and  county  offices.  And 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE   WEST      253 

yet  this  city  affords  a  striking  instance  of  the 
deleterious  effect  of  the  preservation  of  the  race 
group.  It  must  be  said  that  the  community's 
spirit  toward  these  citizens  was  the  friendliest 
in  the  world;  that  in  the  first  years  of  the 
European  War  allowances  were  generously  made 
for  family  ties  that  still  bound  many  to  the 
fatherland  and  for  pride  and  prejudice  of  race. 
There  had  never  been  any  question  as  to  the 
thorough  assimilation  of  the  greater  number 
into  the  body  of  American  democracy  until  the 
beginning  of  the  war  in  1914. 

Wrhen  America  joined  with  the  Allies  a  silence 
fell  upon  those  who  had  been  supporting  the 
German  cause.  The  most  outspoken  of  the 
German  sympathizers  yielded  what  in  many 
cases  was  a  grudging  and  reluctant  assent 
to  America's  preparations  for  wrar.  Others 
made  no  sign  one  way  or  the  other.  There 
were  those  who  wished  to  quibble  —  who  said 
that  they  were  for  America,  of  course,  but  that 
they  were  not  for  England;  that  England  had 
begun  the  war  to  crush  Germany;  that  the 
stories  of  atrocities  were  untrue.  As  to  the 
Lusitania,  Americans  had  no  business  to  dis- 
regard the  warning  of  the  Imperial  German 
Government;  and  America  "had  no  right" 
to  ship  munitions  to  Germany's  enemies.  Re- 


ports  of  disloyal  speech  or  of  active  sedition  on 
the  part  of  well-known  citizens  were  freely 
circulated. 

German  influence  in  the  public  schools  had 
been  marked  for  years,  and  the  president  of  the 
school  board  was  a  German,  active  in  the 
affairs  of  the  National  German-American  Alli- 
ance. The  teaching  of  German  in  the  grade 
schools  was  forbidden  by  the  Indianapolis 
school  commissioners  last  year,  though  it  is 
compulsory  under  a  State  law  where  the  parents 
of  twenty-five  children  request  it.  It  was 
learned  that  "The  Star-Spangled  Banner"  was 
sung  in  German  in  at  least  one  public  school  as 
part  of  the  instruction  in  the  German  language, 
and  this  was  defended  by  German -Americans 
on  the  ground  that  knowledge  of  their  national 
anthem  in  two  languages  broadened  the  chil- 
dren's appreciation  of  its  beauties.  One  might 
wonder  just  how  long  the  singing  of  "Die 
Wacht  am  Rhein"  in  a  foreign  language  wrould 
be  tolerated  in  Germany ! 

We  witnessed  what  in  many  cases  was  a 
gradual  and  not  too  hearty  yielding  to  the 
American  position,  and  what  in  others  was  a 
refusal  to  discuss  the  matter  with  a  protest 
that  any  question  of  loyalty  was  an  insult. 
Suggestions  that  a  public  demonstration  by 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      255 

German-Americans,  at  a  time  when  loyalty 
meetings  were  being  held  by  American  citizens 
everywhere,  would  satisfy  public  clamor  and 
protect  innocent  sufferers  from  business  boy- 
cotts and  other  manifestations  of  disapproval 
were  met  with  indignation.  The  situation  be- 
came acute  upon  the  disclosure  that  the  Inde- 
pendent Turnverein,  a  club  with  a  handsome 
house  that  enrolled  many  Americans  in  its  mem- 
bership, had  on  New  Year's  Eve  violated  the 
government  food  regulations.  The  president, 
who  had  been  outspoken  against  Germany 
long  before  America  was  drawn  into  the  w^ar, 
made  public  apology,  and  as  a  result  of  the  flurry 
steps  were  taken  immediately  to  change  the 
name  of  the  organization  to  the  Independent 
Athletic  Club.  On  Lincoln's  Birthday  a  patri- 
otic celebration  was  held  in  the  club.  On 
Washington's  Birthday  Das  Deutsche  Haus,  the 
most  important  German  social  centre  in  the 
State,  announced  a  change  of  its  name  to  the 
Athenaeum.  In  his  address  on  this  occasion  Mr. 
Carl  H.  Lieber  said: 

With  mighty  resolve  we  have  taken  up  arms  to  gain 
recognition  for  the  lofty  principles  of  a  free  people  in  un- 
alterable opposition  to  autocracy  and  military  despotism. 
Emerging  from  the  mists  and  smoke  of  battle,  these  Ameri- 
can principles,  like  brilliant  handwriting  in  the  skies,  have 
been  clearly  set  out  by  our  President  for  the  eyes  of  the 


256    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

world  to  see.  Our  country  stands  undivided  for  their 
realization.  Impartially  and  unselfishly  we  are  fighting, 
we  feel,  for  justice  in  this  world  and  the  rights  of  mankind. 

This  from  a  representative  citizen  of  the  second 
generation  satisfactorily  disposed  of  the  question 
of  loyalty,  both  as  to  the  renamed  organization 
and  the  majority  of  its  more  influential  members. 
A  little  later  the  Miinnerchor,  another  German 
club,  changed  its  name  to  the  Academy  of 
Music. 

It  is  only  just  to  say  that,  as  against  many 
evidences  of  a  failure  to  assimilate,  there  is 
gratifying  testimony  that  a  very  considerable 
number  of  persons  of  German  birth  or  ancestry 
in  these  States  have  neither  encouraged  nor 
have  they  been  affected  by  attempts  to  diffuse 
and  perpetuate  German  ideas.  Many  German 
families  -  - 1  know  conspicuous  instances  in 
Western  cities  —  are  in  no  way  distinguish- 
able from  their  neighbors  of  American  stock. 
In  one  Middle  Western  city  a  German  mechanic, 
who  before  coming  to  America  served  in  the 
German  army  arid  is  without  any  illusions  as  to 
the  delights  of  autocracy,  tells  me  that  attach- 
ment to  the  fatherland  is  confined  very  largely 
to  the  more  prosperous  element,  and  that  he 
encountered  little  hostility  among  the  hum- 
bler people  of  German  antecedents  whom  he 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      257 

attempted  to  convince  of  the  justice  of  the 
American  position. 

The  National  German-American  Alliance, 
chartered  by  special  act  of  Congress  in  1901, 
was  one  of  the  most  insidious  and  mischievous 
agencies  for  German  propaganda  in  America. 
It  was  a  device  for  correlating  German  societies 
of  every  character — turnvereins,  music  societies, 
church  organizations,  and  social  clubs,  and  it 
is  said  that  the  Alliance  had  2,500,000  members 
scattered  through  forty-seven  American  States. 
"Our  own  prestige,"  recites  one  of  its  publica- 
tions, "depends  upon  the  prestige  of  the  father- 
land, and  for  that  reason  we  cannot  allow  any 
disparagement  of  Germany  to  go  unpunished." 
It  was  recited  in  the  Alliance's  statement  of  its 
aims  that  one  of  its  purposes  was  to  combat 
"nativistic  encroachments."  I  am  assured  by 
a  German -American  that  this  use  of  "nativistic" 
does  not  refer  to  the  sense  in  which  it  was 
used  in  America  in  the  Know-Nothing  period, 
but  that  it  means  merely  resistance  to  puri- 
tanical infringements  upon  personal  freedom, 
with  special  reference  to  prohibition. 

The  compulsory  teaching  of  German  in  the 
public  schools  was  a  frank  item  of  the  Alliance's 
programme.  In  his  book,  "Their  True  Faith 
and  Allegiance"  (1916),  Mr.  Gustavus  Ohlinger, 


258    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

of  Toledo,  whose  testimony  before  the  Judiciary 
Committee  of  the  United  States  Senate  at- 
tracted much  attention  last  February,  describes 
the  systematic  effort  to  widen  the  sphere  of  the 
teaching  of  German  in  Western  States.  Ohio 
and  Indiana  have  laws  requiring  German  to  be 
taught  upon  the  petition  of  parents.  Before 
the  repeal  of  a  similar  law  in  Nebraska  last 
April  we  find  that  in  Nebraska  City  the  school 
board  had  been  compelled  by  the  courts  to 
obey  the  law,  though  less  than  one-third  of  the 
petitioners  really  intended  to  have  their  chil- 
dren receive  instruction  in  German.  Mr.  Ohl- 
inger  thus  describes  the  operation  of  the  law  in 
Omaha : 

In  the  city  of  Omaha  .  .  .  the  State  organizer  of  the 
Nebraska  federation  of  German  societies  visited  the 
schools  recently  and  was  more  than  pleased  with  what 
he  found:  the  childern  were  acquiring  a  typically  Berlin 
accent,  sung  a  number  of  German  songs  to  his  entire 
approval,  and  finally  ended  by  rendering  "Die  Wacht 
am  Rhein"  with  an  enthusiasm  and  a  gusto  which  could 
not  be  excelled  among  children  of  the  fatherland.  Four 
years  ago  Nebraska  had  only  90  high  schools  which  offered 
instruction  in  German.  To-day,  so  the  Alliance  reports, 
German  is  taught  in  222  high  schools  and  in  the  grade 
schools  of  nine  cities.  Omaha  alone  has  3,500  pupils 
taking  German  instruction.  In  addition  to  this,  the 
State  federation  has  been  successful  in  obtaining  an  ap- 
propriation for  the  purchase  of  German  books  for  the 
State  circulating  library.  Germans  have  been  urged  to 
call  for  such  books,  in  order  to  convince  the  State  librarian 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      259 

that  there  is  a  popular  demand  and  to  induce  further 
progress  in  this  direction. 

These  conditions  have,  of  course,  passed,  and 
it  is  for  those  of  us  who  would  guard  jealously 
our  rights,  and  honestly  fulfil  our  obligations, 
as  American  citizens  to  see  to  it  that  they  do 
not  recur.  The  Alliance  announced  its  volun- 
tary dissolution  some  time  before  its  charter 
was  annulled,  but  the  testimony  before  the  King 
committee,  which  the  government  has  published, 
will  be  an  important  source  of  material  for  the 
historian  of  the  war.  German  propaganda  and 
activity  in  the  Middle  West  did  little  for  the 
Kaiser  but  to  make  the  word  "German"  an 
odious  term.  "German"  in  business  titles  and 
in  club  names  has  disappeared  and  German 
language  newspapers  have  in  many  instances 
changed  their  names  or  gone  out  of  business. 
I  question  whether  the  end  of  the  war  will  wit- 
ness any  manifestations  of  magnanimity  that 
will  make  possible  a  restoration  of  the  teaching 
of  German  in  primary  and  high  schools. 

We  of  the  Middle  West,  who  had  thought 
ourselves  the  especial  guardians  of  American 
democracy,  found  with  dismay  that  the  mailed 
fist  of  Berlin  was  clutching  our  public  schools. 
In  Chicago,  where  so  much  time,  money,  and 
thought  are  expended  in  the  attempt  to  Ameri- 


260    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

canize  the  foreign  accretions,  the  spelling-book 
used  in  the  fourth,  fifth,  sixth,  seventh,  and 
eighth  grades  consisted  wholly  of  word-lists, 
with  the  exception  of  two  exercises  —  one  of 
ten  lines,  describing  the  aptness  of  the  natives 
of  Central  Australia  in  identifying  the  tracks  of 
birds  and  animals,  and  another  which  is  here 
reproduced : 

THE   KAISER  IN  THE  MAKING 

In  the  gymnasium  at  Cassel  the  German  Kaiser  spent 
three  years  of  his  boyhood,  a  diligent  but  not  a  brilliant 
pupil,  ranking  tenth  among  seventeen  candidates  for  the 
university. 

Many  tales  are  told  of  this  period  of  his  life,  and  one 
of  them,  at  least,  is  illuminating. 

A  professor,  it  is  said,  wishing  to  curry  favor  with  his 
royal  pupil,  informed  him  overnight  of  the  chapter  in  Greek 
that  was  to  be  made  the  subject  of  the  next  day's  lesson. 

The  young  prince  did  what  many  boys  would  not  have 
done.  As  soon  as  the  classroom  was  opened  on  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  he  entered  and  wrote  conspicuously  on 
the  blackboard  the  information  that  had  been  given  him. 

One  may  say  unhesitatingly  that  a  boy  capable  of  such 
an  action  has  the  root  of  a  fine  character  in  him,  possesses 
that  chivalrous  sense  of  fair  play  which  is  the  nearest  thing 
to  a  religion  that  may  be  looked  for  at  that  age,  hates 
meanness  and  favoritism,  and  will,  wherever  possible,  ex- 
pose them.  There  is  in  him  a  fundamental  bent  toward 
what  is  clean,  manly,  and  aboveboard. 

The  copy  of  the  book  before  me  bears  the  im- 
print, "Board  of  Education,  City  of  Chicago, 
1914."  The  Kaiser's  "chivalrous  sense  of  fair 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      261 

play"  has,  of  course,  ceased  to  be  a  matter  of 
public  instruction  in  the  Western  metropolis. 

"Im  Vaterland,"  a  German  reading-book 
used  in  a  number  of  Western  schools,  states 
frankly  in  its  preface  that  it  was  "made  in  Ger- 
many," and  that  "after  the  manuscript  had 
been  completed  it  was  manifolded  and  copies 
were  criticised  by  teachers  in  Prussia,  Saxony, 
and  Bavaria." 

In  contrast  with  the  equivocal  loyalty  of 
Germans  who  have  sought  to  perpetuate  and 
accentuate  the  hyphen,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  tes- 
tify to  the  admirable  spirit  with  which  the  Jew- 
ish people  in  these  Western  States  have  re- 
peatedly manifested  their  devotion  to  America. 
Many  of  these  are  of  German  birth  or  the  chil- 
dren of  German  immigrants,  and  yet  I  am  aware 
of  no  instance  of  a  German  Jew  in  the  region 
most  familiar  to  me  who  has  not  warmly  sup- 
ported the  American  cause.  They  have  not 
only  given  generously  to  the  Red  Cross  and  to 
funds  for  French  and  Belgian  relief,  quite  inde- 
pendently of  their  efforts  in  behalf  of  people  of 
their  own  race  in  other  countries,  but  they  have 
rendered  most  important  aid  in  all  other  branches 
of  war  activities.  No  finer  declaration  of  whole- 
hearted Americanism  has  been  made  by  any 
American  of  German  birth  than  that  expressed 


262    THE   VALLEY   OF   DEMOCRACY 

(significantly  at  Milwaukee)   by  Mr.  Otto  II. 
Kahn,  of  New  York,  last  January: 

Until  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  in  1914,  I  maintained 
close  and  active  personal  and  business  relations  in  Ger- 
many. I  was  well  acquainted  with  a  number  of  the  lead- 
ing personages  of  the  country.  I  served  in  the  German 
army  thirty  years  ago.  I  took  an  active  interest  in  fur- 
thering German  art  in  America.  I  do  not  apologize  for, 
nor  am  I  ashamed  of,  my  German  birth.  But  I  am 
ashamed  —  bitterly  and  grievously  ashamed  —  of  the 
Germany  which  stands  convicted  before  the  high  tri- 
bunal of  the  world's  public  opinion  of  having  planned  and 
willed  war,  of  the  revolting  deeds  committed  in  Belgium 
and  northern  France,  of  the  infamy  of  the  Lusitania  mur- 
ders, of  innumerable  violations  of  The  Hague  conventions 
and  the  law  of  nations,  of  abominable  and  perfidious  plot- 
ting in  friendly  countries,  and  shameless  abuse  of  their 
hospitality,  of  crime  heaped  upon  crime  in  hideous  defi- 
ance of  the  laws  of  God  and  man. 

A  curious  phase  of  this  whole  situation  is  the 
fact  that  so  many  thousands  of  Germans  who 
found  the  conditions  in  their  own  empire  in- 
tolerable and  sought  homes  in  America,  should 
have  fostered  a  sentimental  attachment  for  the 
fatherland  as  a  land  of  comfort  and  happiness, 
and  of  its  ruler  as  a  glorious  Lohengrin  afloat 
upon  the  river  of  time  in  a  swan-boat,  in  an 
atmosphere  of  charm  and  mystery,  to  the 
accompaniment  of  enchanting  music.  In  their 
clubs  and  homes  they  so  dreamed  of  this  Ger- 
many and  talked  of  it  in  the  language  of  the 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      263 

land  of  their  illusion  that  the  sudden  trans- 
formation of  their  knight  of  the  swan-boat  into 
a  war  lord  of  frightfulness  and  terror,  seeking 
to  plant  his  iron  feet  upon  an  outraged  world, 
has  only  slowly  penetrated  to  their  compre- 
hension. It  is  clear  that  there  has  been  on 
America's  part  a  failure,  that  cannot  be  mini- 
mized or  scouted,  to  communicate  to  many  of 
the  most  intelligent  and  desirable  of  all  our 
adopted  citizens,  the  spirit  of  that  America 
founded  by  Washington  and  saved  by  Lincoln, 
and  all  the  great  host  who  in  their  train  — 

"spread  from  sea  to  sea 
A  thousand  leagues  the  zone  of  liberty, 
And  gave  to  man  this  refuge  from  his  past, 
Unkinged,  unchurched,  unsoldiered." 


IV 

In  closing  these  papers  it  seems  ungenerous 
to  ignore  the  criticisms  with  which  they  were 
favored  during  their  serial  publication.  To  a 
gentleman  in  Colorado  who  insists  that  my 
definition  and  use  of  Folks  and  "folksiness" 
leave  him  in  the  dark  as  to  my  meaning,  I  can 
only  suggest  that  a  visit  to  certain  communities 
which  I  shall  be  glad  to  choose  for  him,  in  the 
States  of  our  central  basin,  will  do  much  for  his 


2Gi    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

illumination.  An  intimation  from  another 
quarter  that  those  terms  as  I  have  employed 
them  originated  in  Kentucky  does  not  distress 
me  a  particle,  for  are  not  we  of  Ohio,  Indiana, 
and  Illinois  first  cousins  of  the  people  across  the 
Ohio?  At  once  some  one  will  rise  to  declare 
that  all  that  is  truly  noble  in  the  Middle  West 
was  derived  from  the  Eastern  States  or  from 
New  England,  and  on  this  question  I  might  with 
a  good  conscience  write  a  fair  brief  on  either  side. 
With  one  Revolutionary  great-grandfather,  a 
native  of  Delaware,  buried  in  Ohio,  and  another, 
a  Carolinian,  reposing  in  the  soil  of  Kentucky, 
I  should  be  content  no  matter  where  fell  the 
judgment  of  the  court. 

To  the  complaint  of  the  Chicago  lady  who 
assailed  the  editor  for  his  provincialism  in  per- 
mitting an  Easterner  to  abuse  her  city,  I  de- 
mur that  I  was  born  and  have  spent  most  of 
the  years  of  my  life  within  a  few  hours  of  Chi- 
cago, a  city  dear  to  me  from  long  and  rather 
intimate  acquaintance  and  hallowed  by  most 
agreeable  associations.  The  Evening  Post  of 
Chicago,  having  found  the  fruits  of  my  note- 
book "dull"  as  to  that  metropolis,  must  per- 
mit me  to  plead  that  in  these  stirring  times 
the  significant  things  about  a  city  are  not  its 
clubs,  its  cabarets,  or  its  galloping  "loop- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      265 

hounds,"  but  the  efforts  of  serious-minded 
citizens  of  courage  and  vision  to  make  it  a 
better  place  to  live  in.  The  cynicism  of  those 
to  whom  the  contemplation  of  such  efforts  is 
fatiguing,  lacks  novelty  and  is  only  tolerable  in 
so  far  as  it  is  a  stimulus  to  the  faithful  workers 
in  the  vineyard. 

I  have  spoken  of  The  Valley  of  Democracy 
as  being  in  itself  a  romance,  and  the  tale  as 
written  upon  hill  and  plain  and  along  lake  and 
river  is  well-nigh  unequalled  for  variety  and  in- 
terest in  the  annals  of  mankind.  I  must  plead 
that  the  sketchiness  of  these  papers  is  due  not 
to  any  lack  of  respect  for  the  work  of  soberer 
chroniclers,  but  is  attributable  rather  to  the 
humility  with  which  I  have  traversed  a  region 
laboriously  explored  by  the  gallant  company 
of  scholars  who  have  established  Middle  West- 
ern history  upon  so  firm  a  foundation.  It  is 
the  view  of  persons  whose  opinions  are  entitled 
to  all  respect  that  the  winning  of  the  West  is 
the  most  significant  and  important  phase  of 
American  history.  Certain  it  is  that  the  story 
wherever  one  dips  into  it  immediately  quickens 
the  heart-beat,  and  it  is  a  pleasure  to  note  the 
devotion  and  intelligence  with  which  materials 
for  history  have  been  assembled  in  all  the  States 
embraced  in  my  general  title. 


266    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

The  great  pioneer  collector  of  historical  ma- 
terial was  Dr.  Reuben  Gold  Thwaites,  who 
made  the  Wisconsin  Historical  Society  the  most 
efficient  local  organization  of  its  kind  in  the 
country.  "He  was  the  first,"  writes  Dr.  Clar- 
ence W.  Alvord,  of  the  University  of  Illinois, 
"to  unite  the  State  historical  agent  and  the 
university  department  of  history  so  that  they 
give  each  other  mutual  assistance  —  a  union 
which  some  States  have  brought  about  only 
lately  with  great  difficulty,  while  others  are  still 
limping  along  on  two  ill-mated  crutches."  Dr. 
Thwaites  was  an  indefatigable  laborer  in  his 
chosen  field,  and  an  inspiring  leader.  He  not 
only  brought  to  light  a  prodigious  amount  of 
material  and  made  it  accessible  to  other  scholars, 
but  he  communicated  his  enthusiasm  to  a  note- 
worthy school  of  historians  who  have  special- 
ized in  "sections"  of  the  broad  fertile  field  into 
which  he  set  the  first  plough.  Where  the  land 
is  so  new  it  is  surprising  and  not  a  little  amus- 
ing that  there  should  be  debatable  points  of 
history,  and  yet  the  existence  of  these  adds 
zest  to  the  labors  of  the  younger  school  of  his- 
torical students  and  writers.  State  historical 
societies  have  in  recent  years  assumed  a  new 
dignity  and  importance,  due  in  great  measure 
to  the  fine  example  set  by  Wisconsin  under 
Dr.  Thwaites's  guidance. 


Frederick  Jackson  Turner  is  another  historian 
whose  interest  in  the  West  has  borne  fruit  in 
works  of  value,  and  he  has  established  new 
points  of  orientation  for  explorers  in  this  field. 
He  must  always  be  remembered  as  one  of  the 
first  to  appreciate  the  significance  of  the  West- 
ern frontier  in  American  history,  and  by  his 
writings  and  addresses  he  has  done  much  to 
arouse  respect  for  the  branch  in  which  he  has 
specialized.  Nor  shall  I  omit  Dr.  John  H. 
Finley's  "The  French  in  the  Heart  of  America" 
as  among  recent  valuable  additions  to  historical 
literature.  There  is  a  charming  freshness  and 
an  infectious  enthusiasm  in  Dr.  Finley's  pages, 
attributable  to  his  deep  poetic  feeling  for  the 
soil  to  which  he  was  born.  All  writers  of  the 
history  of  the  Northwest,  of  course,  confess  their 
indebtedness  to  Parkman,  and  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  before  Theodore  Roosevelt  be- 
came a  distinguished  figure  in  American  public 
life  he  had  written  "The  Winning  of  the  West," 
which  established  a  place  for  him  among  Ameri- 
can historians. 

A  historical  society  was  formed  in  Indiana  in 
1830,  but  as  no  building  was  ever  provided  for 
its  collection,  many  valuable  records  were  lost 
when  the  State  capitol  was  torn  down  thirty 
years  ago.  Many  documents  that  should  have 
been  kept  within  the  State  found  their  way  to 


268    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

Wisconsin  —  an  appropriation  by  the  tireless 
Thwaites  of  which  Indiana  can  hardly  complain 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  she  has  never  provided 
for  the  proper  housing  of  historical  material. 
Still,  interest  in  local  history,  much  of  it  having 
an  important  bearing  on  the  national  life,  has 
never  wholly  died,  and  in  recent  years  the 
Indiana  Historical  Magazine  and  the  labors  of 
Jacob  P.  Dunn,  James  A.  Woodburn,  Logan 
Esarey,  Daniel  Waite  Howe,  Harlow  Lindley, 
and  other  students  and  writers  have  directed 
attention  to  the  richness  of  the  local  field. 

Illinois,  slipping  this  year  into  her  second  cen- 
tury of  statehood,  is  thoroughly  awake  to  the 
significance  of  the  Illinois  country  in  Western 
development.  Dr.  Alvord,  who,  by  his  re- 
searches and  writings,  has  illuminated  many 
dark  passages  of  Middle  Western  history,  has 
taken  advantage  of  the  centenary  to  rouse  the 
State  to  a  new  sense  of  its  important  share  in 
American  development.  The  investigator  in 
this  field  is  rewarded  by  the  unearthing  of 
treasures  as  satisfying  as  any  that  may  fall 
to  the  hand  of  a  Greek  archaeologist.  The 
trustees  of  the  Illinois  Historical  Library  sent 
Dr.  Alvord  to  "sherlock"  an  old  French  docu- 
ment reported  to  be  in  the  court-house  of 
St.  Clair  county.  Not  only  was  this  document 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      269 

found  but  the  more  important  Cahokia  papers 
were  discovered,  bearing  upon  the  history  of  the 
Illinois  country  during  the  British  occupation 
and  the  American  Revolution.  Illinois  has  un- 
dertaken a  systematic  survey  of  county  archives, 
which  includes  also  a  report  upon  manuscript 
material  held  by  individuals,  and  the  centenary 
is  to  have  a  fitting  memorial  in  a  five-volume 
State  history  to  be  produced  by  authoritative 
writers, 

Iowa,  jealous  of  her  history  and  traditions, 
has  a  State-supported  historical  society  with  a 
fine  list  of  publications  to  its  credit.  Under  the 
direction  of  the  society's  superintendent,  Dr. 
Benjamin  F.  Shambaugh,  the  search  for  ma- 
terial is  thorough  and  persistent,  and  over 
forty  volumes  of  historical  material  have  been 
published.  The  Iowa  public  and  college  libra- 
ries are  all  branches  of  the  society  and  deposi- 
tories of  its  publications.  The  Mississippi  Val- 
ley Historical  Association  held  its  eleventh 
annual  meeting  this  year  in  St.  Paul  to  mark  the 
dedication  of  the  new  building  erected  by  the 
State  for  the  use  of  the  Minnesota  Historical 
Society. 

The  wide  scope  of  Western  historical  inquiry 
is  indicated  in  the  papers  of  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley Association,  and  its  admirable  quarterly 


270    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

review,  in  which  we  find  monographs  by  the 
ethnologist,  the  specialist  in  exploration,  and 
the  student  of  political  crises,  such  as  the 
Lincoln-Douglas  contest  and  the  Greenback 
movement.  Not  only  are  the  older  Middle 
Western  States  producing  historical  matter  of 
national  importance  but  Montana  and  the 
Dakotas  are  inserting  chapters  that  bind  the 
Mississippi  Valley  to  the  picturesque  annals  of 
California  in  a  continuous  narrative.  Minne- 
sota, Wisconsin,  Michigan,  Iowa,  Illinois,  and 
Indiana  have  established  an  informal  union 
for  the  prosecution  of  their  work,  one  feature 
of  which  is  the  preparation  of  a  "finding  list" 
of  documents  in  Washington.  This  co-ordina- 
tion prevents  duplication  of  labor  and  makes 
for  unity  of  effort  in  a  field  of  common  interest. 


V 

I  had  hoped  that  space  would  permit  a  review 
in  some  detail  of  municipal  government  in  a 
number  of  cities,  but  I  may  now  emphasize 
only  the  weakness  of  a  mere  "form,"  or  "sys- 
tem," where  the  electorate  manifest  too  great  a 
confidence  in  a  device  without  the  "follow-up" 
so  essential  to  its  satisfactory  employment; 
and  I  shall  mention  Omaha,  whose  municipal 


THE    SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      271 

struggle  has  been  less  advertised  than  that  of 
some  other  Western  cities.  Omaha  was  fortu- 
nate in  having  numbered  among  its  pioneers  a 
group  of  men  of  unusual  ability  and  foresight. 
First  a  military  outpost  and  a  trading  centre 
for  adventurous  settlements,  the  building  of  the 
Union  Pacific  made  it  an  important  link  between 
East  and  West,  and,  from  being  a  market  for 
agricultural  products  of  one  of  the  most  fertile 
regions  in  the  world,  its  interests  have  multi- 
plied until  it  now  offers  a  most  interesting  study 
in  the  interdependence  and  correlation  of  eco- 
nomic factors. 

Like  most  other  Western  cities,  Omaha  grew 
so  rapidly  and  was  so  preoccupied  with  business 
that  its  citizens,  save  for  the  group  of  the  faithful 
who  are  to  be  found  everywhere,  left  the  matter 
of  local  government  to  the  politicians.  Bossism 
became  intolerable,  and  with  high  hopes  the 
people  in  1912  adopted  commission  government; 
but  the  bosses,  with  their  usual  adaptability 
and  resourcefulness,  immediately  captured  the 
newly  created  offices.  It  is  a  fair  consensus  of 
local  opinion  that  there  has  been  little  if  any 
gain  in  economy  or  efficiency.  Under  the  old 
charter  city  councilmen  were  paid  $1,800;  the 
commissioners  under  the  new  plan  receive  $4,500, 
with  an  extra  $500  for  the  one  chosen  mayor. 


THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

Several  of  the  commissioners  are  equal  to  their 
responsibilities,  but  a  citizen  who  is  a  close 
student  of  such  matters  says  that  "while  in 
theory  we  were  to  get  a  much  higher  grade  of 
public  servants,  in  fact  we  merely  elected  men 
content  to  work  for  the  lower  salary  and  doubled 
and  tripled  their  pay.  We  still  have  $1,800  men 
in  $4,500  jobs."  However,  at  the  election  last 
spring  only  one  of  the  city  commissioners  was 
re-elected,  and  Omaha  is  hoping  that  the  present 
year  will  show  a  distinct  improvement  in  the 
management  of  its  public  business.  Local  pride 
is  very  strong  in  these  Western  cities,  and  from 
the  marked  anxiety  to  show  a  forward-looking 
spirit  and  a  praiseworthy  sensitiveness  to  criti- 
cism \ve  may  look  confidently  for  a  steady  gain 
in  the  field  of  municipal  government. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  in  the  general  awaken- 
ing to  our  imperfections  caused  by  the  war,  there 
may  be  a  widening  of  these  groups  of  patient, 
earnest  citizens,  who  labor  for  the  rationaliza- 
tion of  municipal  government.  The  disposition 
to  say  that  "as  things  have  been  they  remain" 
is  strong  upon  us,  but  it  is  worth  remembering 
that  Clough  also  bids  us  "say  not  the  struggle 
naught  availeth."  The  struggle  goes  on  cou- 
rageously, and  the  number  of  those  who  concern 
themselves  with  the  business  of  strengthening 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      273 

the  national  structure  by  pulling  out  the  rotten 
timbers  in  our  cities  proceeds  tirelessly. 

Western  cities  are  constantly  advertising 
their  advantages  and  resources,  and  offer- 
ing free  sites  and  other  inducements  to  manu- 
facturers to  tempt  them  to  move;  but  it  occurs 
to  me  that  forward-looking  cities  may  present 
their  advantages  more  alluringly  by  perfecting 
their  local  government  and  making  this  the 
burden  of  their  appeal.  We  shall  get  nowhere 
with  commission  government  or  the  city-man- 
ager plan  until  cities  realize  that  no  matter 
how  attractive  and  plausible  a  device,  it  is  worth- 
less unless  due  consideration  is  given  to  the 
human  equation.  It  is  very  difficult  to  find 
qualified  administrators  under  the  city -manager 
plan.  A  successful  business  man  or  even  a 
trained  engineer  may  fail  utterly,  and  we  seem 
to  be  at  the  point  of  creating  a  new  profession 
of  great  opportunities  for  young  men  (and 
women  too)  in  the  field  of  municipal  administra- 
tion. At  the  University  of  Kansas  and  perhaps 
elsewhere  courses  are  offered  for  the  training  of 
city  managers.  The  mere  teaching  of  municipal 
finance  and  engineering  will  not  suffice;  the 
courses  should  cover  social  questions  and  kindred 
matters  and  not  neglect  the  psychology  involved 
in  the  matter  of  dealing  fairly  and  justly  with 


274    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

the  public.  By  giving  professional  dignity  to 
positions  long  conferred  upon  the  incompetent 
and  venal  we  should  at  least  destroy  the  cynical 
criticism  that  there  are  no  men  available  for 
the  positions  created;  and  it  is  conceivable 
that  once  the  idea  of  fitness  has  become  im- 
planted in  a  careless  and  indifferent  public  a 
higher  standard  will  be  set  for  all  elective  offices. 


VI 

No  Easterner  possessed  of  the  slightest  deli- 
cacy will  read  what  follows,  which  is  merely  a 
memorandum  for  my  friends  and  neighbors  of 
the  great  Valley.  We  of  the  West  have  never 
taken  kindly  to  criticism,  chiefly  because  it  has 
usually  been  offered  in  a  spirit  of  condescension, 
or  what  in  our  extreme  sensitiveness  we  have 
been  rather  eager  to  believe  to  be  such.  In  our 
comfortable  towns  and  villages  we  may  admit 
weaknesses  the  mention  of  which  by  our  cousins 
in  partibus  infidelium  arouses  our  deepest  ire. 
We  shall  not  meekly  suffer  the  East  in  its  dis- 
dainful moods  to  play  upon  us  with  the  light 
lash  of  its  irony;  but  among  ourselves  we  may 
confess  that  at  times  we  have  profited  by  East- 
ern criticism.  After  all,  there  is  no  spirit  of 
the  West  that  is  very  different  from  the  spirit 


of  the  East.  Though  I  only  whisper  it,  we 
have,  I  think,  rather  more  humor.  We  are 
friendlier,  less  snobbish,  more  sanguine  in  our 
outlook  upon  public  matters,  and  have  a  greater 
confidence  in  democracy  than  the  East.  I  have 
indicated  with  the  best  heart  in  the  world  cer- 
tain phases  and  tendencies  of  our  provinces  that 
seem  to  me  admirable,  and  others  beside  which 
I  have  scratched  a  question-mark  for  the  con- 
templation of  the  sober-minded.  I  am  disposed 
to  say  that  the  most  interesting  thing  about  us 
is  our  politics,  but  that,  safely  though  we  have 
ridden  the  tempest  now  and  again,  these  be 
times  when  it  becomes  us  to  ponder  with  a  new 
gravity  the  weight  we  carry  in  the  national  scale. 
Colorado,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Kansas,  Michi- 
gan, Minnesota,  Nebraska,  Ohio,  and  Wiscon- 
sin wield  145  votes  of  the  total  of  531  in  the 
electoral  college;  and  in  1916  Mr.  Wilson's 
majority  was  only  23.  The  political  judgment 
of  the  nation  is  likely,  far  into  the  future,  to  be 
governed  by  the  West.  We  dare  not,  if  we 
would,  carry  our  responsibilities  lightly.  We 
have  of  late  been  taking  our  politics  much  more 
seriously;  a  flexibility  of  the  vote,  apparent  in 
recent  contests,  is  highly  encouraging  to  those 
of  us  who  see  a  hope  and  a  safety  in  the  multi- 
plication of  the  independents.  But  even  with 


276    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

this  we  have  done  little  to  standardize  public 
service;  the  ablest  men  of  the  West  do  not 
govern  it,  and  the  fact  that  this  has  frequently 
been  true  of  the  country  at  large  can  afford 
us  no  honest  consolation.  There  is  no  reason 
why,  if  we  are  the  intelligent,  proud  sons  of 
democracy  we  imagine  ourselves  to  be,  we 
should  not  so  elevate  our  political  standards  as 
to  put  other  divisions  of  the  republic  to  shame. 
There  are  thousands  of  us  who  at  every  election 
vote  for  candidates  we  know  nothing  about,  or 
for  others  we  would  not  think  of  intrusting  with 
any  private  affair,  and  yet  because  we  find 
their  names  under  a  certain  party  emblem  wre 
cheerfully  turn  over  to  such  persons  important 
public  business  for  the  honest  and  efficient 
transaction  of  which  they  have  not  the  slightest 
qualification.  What  I  am  saying  is  merely  a 
repetition  of  what  has  been  said  for  years  with- 
out marked  effect  upon  the  electorate.  But 
just  now,  when  democracy  is  fighting  for  its  life 
in  the  world,  we  do  well  to  give  serious  heed  to 
such  warnings.  If  we  have  not  time  or  patience 
to  perform  the  services  required  of  a  citizen  who 
would  be  truly  self-governing,  then  the  glory  of 
fighting  for  free  institutions  on  the  battle-fields 
of  Europe  is  enormously  diminished. 

The  coming  of  the  war  found  the  West  rather 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE   WEST      277 

hard  put  for  any  great  cause  upon  which  to 
expend  its  energy  and  enthusiasm.  We  need 
a  good  deal  of  enthusiasm  to  keep  us  "up  to 
pitch,"  and  I  shall  not  scruple  to  say  that,  in 
spite  of  our  fine  showing  as  to  every  demand 
thus  far  made  by  the  war,  the  roll  of  the  drums 
really  found  us  inviting  the  reproach  passed  by 
the  prophet  upon  them  "that  lie  upon  beds  of 
ivory,  and  stretch  themselves  upon  their  couches, 
and  eat  the  lambs  out  of  the  flock,  and  the  calves 
out  of  the  midst  of  the  stall."  Over  and  over 
again,  as  I  have  travelled  through  the  West 
in  recent  years,  it  has  occurred  to  me  that 
sorely  indeed  we  needed  an  awakening.  Self- 
satisfaction  and  self-contemplation  are  little 
calculated  to  promote  that  clear  thinking  and 
vigorous  initiative  that  are  essential  to  trium- 
phant democracy.  Yes;  this  may  be  just  as  true 
of  East  or  South;  but  it  is  of  the  West  that  we 
are  speaking.  I  shall  go  the  length  of  saying 
that  any  failure  of  democracy  "to  work"  here 
in  America  is  more  heavily  chargeable  upon  us 
of  these  Middle  Western  States  than  upon  our 
fellow  Americans  in  other  sections.  For  here 
we  are  young  enough  to  be  very  conscious  of  all 
those  processes  by  which  States  are  formed 
and  political  and  social  order  established.  Our 
fathers  or  our  grandfathers  were  pioneers;  and 


278    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

from  them  the  tradition  is  fresh  of  the  toil 
and  aspiration  that  went  to  the  making  of  these 
commonwealths.  We  cannot  deceive  ourselves 
into  believing  that  they  did  all  that  was  neces- 
sary to  perpetuate  the  structure,  and  that  it  is 
not  incumbent  upon  us  to  defend,  strengthen, 
and  renew  what  they  fashioned.  We  had,  like 
many  of  those  who  have  come  to  us  from  over 
the  sea  to  share  in  our  blessings,  fallen  into  the 
error  of  assuming  that  America  is  a  huge  cor- 
poration in  which  every  one  participates  in  the 
dividends  without  reference  to  his  part  in  earn- 
ing them.  Politically  speaking,  we  have  too 
great  a  number  of  those  who  "hang  on  behind" 
and  are  a  dead  weight  upon  those  who  bear  the 
yoke.  We  must  do  better  about  this;  and  in 
no  way  can  the  West  prove  its  fitness  to  wield 
power  in  the  nation  than  through  a  quickening 
of  all  those  forces  that  tend  to  make  popular 
government  an  intelligently  directed  implement 
controlled  by  the  fit,  and  not  a  weapon  caught 
up  and  exercised  ignorantly  by  the  unfit. 

Again,  still  speaking  as  one  Westerner  to  an- 
other, our  entrance  into  the  war  found  us  danger- 
ously close  to  the  point  of  losing  something  that 
was  finely  spiritual  in  our  forebears.  I  am 
aware  that  an  impatient  shrug  greets  this 
suggestion.  The  spires  and  towers  of  innumer- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      279 

able  churches  decorate  the  Western  sky-line,  and 
I  accept  them  for  what  they  represent,  without 
discussing  the  efficiency  of  the  modern  church 
or  its  failure  or  success  in  meeting  the  problems 
of  modern  life.  There  was  apparent  in  the  first 
settlers  of  the  Mississippi  valley  a  rugged  spiritu- 
ality that  accounted  for  much  in  their  achieve- 
ments. The  West  was  a  lonesome  place  and  re- 
ligion —  Catholic  and  Protestant  —  filled  a  need 
and  assisted  greatly  in  making  wilderness  and 
plain  tolerable.  The  imagination  of  the  pio- 
neer was  quickened  and  brightened  by  the 
promise  of  things  that  he  believed  to  be  eternal; 
the  vast  sweep  of  prairie  and  woodland  deep- 
ened his  sense  of  reliance  upon  the  Infinite. 
This  sense  so  happily  interpreted  and  fittingly 
expressed  by  Lincoln  is  no  longer  discernible  — 
at  least  it  is  not  obtrusively  manifest  —  and 
this  seems  to  me  a  lamentable  loss.  Here, 
again,  it  may  be  said  that  this  is  not  peculiar 
to  the  West;  that  we  have  only  been  affected 
by  the  eternal  movement  of  the  time  spirit. 
And  yet  this  elementary  confidence  in  things 
of  the  spirit  played  an  important  part  in  the 
planting  of  the  democratic  ideal  in  the  heart  of 
America,  and  we  can  but  deplore  the  passing  of 
what  to  our  immediate  ancestors  was  so  satisfy- 
ing and  stimulating.  And  here,  as  with  other 


280    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

problems  that  I  have  passed  with  only  the  most 
superficial  note,  I  have  no  solution,  if  indeed 
any  be  possible.  I  am  fully  conscious  that  I 
fumble  for  something  intangible  and  elusive; 
and  it  may  be  that  I  am  only  crying  vainly  for 
the  restoration  of  something  that  has  gone  for- 
ever. Perhaps  this  war  came  opportunely  to 
break  our  precipitate  rush  toward  materialism, 
and  the  thing  we  were  apparently  losing,  the 
old  enthusiasm  for  higher  things,  the  greater 
leisure  for  self-examination  and  self-commu- 
nion, may  come  again  in  the  day  of  peace. 

"There  is  always,"  says  Woodberry,  "an 
ideality  of  the  human  spirit"  visible  in  all  the 
works  of  democracy,  and  we  need  to  be  re- 
minded of  this  frequently,  for  here  in  the 
heart  of  America  it  is  of  grave  importance  that 
we  remain  open-minded  and  open-hearted  to 
that  continuing  idealism  which  must  be  the 
strength  and  stay  of  the  nation. 

Culture,  as  we  commonly  use  the  term, 
may  properly  be  allowed  to  pass  as  merely  an- 
other aspect  of  the  idealism  "deep  in  the  general 
heart  of  man"  that  we  should  like  to  believe  to 
be  one  of  the  great  assets  of  the  West.  Still 
addressing  the  Folks,  ray  neighbors,  I  will 
temerariously  repeat  an  admission  tucked  into 
an  earlier  chapter,  that  here  is  a  field  where  we 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      281 

do  well  to  carry  ourselves  modestly.  There  was 
an  impression  common  in  my  youth  that  cul- 
ture of  the  highest  order  was  not  only  possible 
in  the  West  but  that  we  Westerners  were  pe- 
culiarly accessible  to  its  benignant  influences 
and  very  likely  to  become  its  special  guardians 
and  apostles.  Those  were  times  when  life  was 
less  complex,  when  the  spirituality  stirred  by 
the  Civil  War  was  still  very  perceptible,  when 
our  enthusiasms  were  less  insistently  presented 
in  statistics  of  crops  and  manufactures.  We 
children  of  those  times  were  encouraged  to  keep 
Emerson  close  at  hand,  for  his  purifying  and 
elevating  influence,  and  in  a  college  town  which 
I  remember  very  well  the  professor  of  Greek  was 
a  venerated  person  and  took  precedence  in  any 
company  over  the  athletic  director. 

In  those  days,  that  seem  now  so  remote,  it 
was  quite  respectable  to  speak  of  the  humanities, 
and  people  did  so  without  self-consciousness. 
But  culture,  the  culture  of  the  humanities, 
never  gained  that  foothold  in  the  West  that  had 
been  predicted  for  it.  That  there  are  few  signs 
of  its  permanent  establishment  anywhere  does 
not  conceal  our  failure  either  to  implant  it 
or  to  find  for  it  any  very  worthy  substitute. 
We  have  valiantly  invested  millions  of  dollars 
in  education  and  other  millions  in  art  museums 


232    THE  VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

and  in  libraries  without  any  resulting  diffusion 
of  what  we  used  to  be  pleased  to  call  culture. 
We  dismiss  the  whole  business  quite  characteris- 
tically by  pointing  with  pride  to  handsome 
buildings  and  generous  endowments  in  much 
the  same  spirit  that  we  call  attention  to  a  new 
automobile  factory.  There  are  always  the  few 
who  profit  by  these  investments;  but  it  is  not 
for  the  few  that  we  design  them;  it  is  for  the 
illumination  of  the  great  mass  that  we  spend 
our  treasure  upon  them.  The  doctrine  of  the 
few  is  the  old  doctrine  of  "numbers"  and  "the 
remnant,"  and  even  at  the  cost  of  reconstructing 
human  nature  we  promised  to  show  the  world 
that  a  great  body  of  people  in  free  American 
States  could  be  made  sensitive  and  responsive 
to  beauty  in  all  its  forms.  The  humanities  still 
struggle  manfully,  but  without  making  any 
great  headway  against  adverse  currents.  The 
State  universities  offer  an  infinite  variety  of 
courses  in  literature  and  the  fine  arts,  and  they 
are  served  by  capable  and  zealous  instructors, 
but  with  no  resulting  progress  against  the  tide 
of  materialism.  "Culture,"  as  a  friend  of  mine 
puts  it,  "is  on  the  blink."  We  hear  reassuring 
reports  of  the  State  technical  schools  where  the 
humanities  receive  a  niggardly  minimum  of  at- 
tention, and  these  institutions  demand  our  heart- 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WEST      283 

iest  admiration  for  the  splendid  work  they  are 
doing.  But  our  development  is  lamentably  one- 
sided; we  have  merely  groups  of  cultivated 
people,  just  as  older  civilizations  had  them,  not 
the  great  communities  animated  by  ideals  of 
nobility  and  beauty  that  we  were  promised. 

In  the  many  matters  which  we  of  the  West 
shall  be  obliged  to  consider  with  reference  to 
the  nation  and  the  rest  of  the  world  as  soon  as 
Kultur  and  its  insolent  presumptions  have  been 
disposed  of,  culture,  in  its  ancient  and  honor- 
able sense,  is  quite  likely  to  make  a  poor  fight 
for  attention.  And  yet  here  are  things,  already 
falling  into  neglect,  which  we  shall  do  well  to 
scan  once  and  yet  again  before  parting  company 
with  them  forever.  There  are  balances  as  be- 
tween materialism  and  idealism  which  it  is  de- 
sirable to  maintain  if  the  fineness  and  vigor  of 
democracy  and  its  higher  inspirational  values 
are  to  be  further  developed.  Our  Middle  West- 
ern idealism  has  been  expending  itself  in  chan- 
nels of  social  and  political  betterment,  and  it 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  we  shall  be  able  to 
divert  some  part  of  its  energy  to  the  history, 
the  literature,  and  the  art  of  the  past,  not  for 
cultural  reasons  merely  but  as  part  of  our  com- 
bat with  provincialism  and  the  creation  of  a 
broad  and  informed  American  spirit. 


284    THE   VALLEY  OF  DEMOCRACY 

"Having  in  mind  things  true,  things  ele- 
vated, things  just,  things  pure,  things  amiable, 
things  of  good  report  —  having  these  in  mind, 
studying  and  loving  these,  is  what  saves  States," 
wrote  Matthew  Arnold  thirty  years  ago.  In 
the  elaboration  of  a  programme  for  the  future  of 
America  that  shall  not  ignore  what  is  here  con- 
noted there  is  presented  to  the  Middle  West 
abundant  material  for  new  enthusiasms  and 
endeavors,  commensurate  with  its  opportunities 
and  obligations  not  merely  as  the  Valley  of 
Democracy  but  as  the  Valley  of  Decision. 

THE  END. 


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